Longitudinal, multimodal functional imaging of microvascular response to photothermal therapy.

Although studies have shown that photothermal therapy can coagulate selectively abnormal vasculature, the ability of this method to achieve consistent, complete removal of the vasculature is questionable. We present the use of multimodal, wide-field functional imaging to study, in greater detail, the biological response to selective laser injury. Specifically, a single-platform instrument capable of coregistered fluorescence imaging and laser speckle imaging was utilized to monitor vascular endothelial growth factor gene expression and blood flow, respectively, in a transgenic rodent model.

Revisiting optical clearing with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).

Functional optical characterization of disease progression and response to therapy suffers from loss of spatial resolution and imaging depth due to scattering. Here we report on the ability of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) alone to reduce the optical scattering of skin. We observed a threefold reduction in the scattering of skin with topical DMSO application.