A Tissue Engineering Acoustophoretic (TEA) Set-up for the Enhanced Osteogenic Differentiation of Murine Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (mMSCs).

Quickly developing precision medicine and patient-oriented treatment strategies urgently require novel technological solutions. The randomly cell-populated scaffolds usually used for tissue engineering often fail to mimic the highly anisotropic characteristics of native tissue. In this work, an ultrasound standing-wave-based tissue engineering acoustophoretic (TEA) set-up was developed to organize murine mesenchymal stromal cells (mMSCs) in an in situ polymerizing 3-D fibrin hydrogel.

Synergy Effect of Combined Near and Mid-Infrared Fibre Spectroscopy for Diagnostics of Abdominal Cancer.

Cancers of the abdominal cavity comprise one of the most prevalent forms of cancers, with the highest contribution from colon and rectal cancers (12% of the human population), followed by stomach cancers (4%). Surgery, as the preferred choice of treatment, includes the selection of adequate resection margins to avoid local recurrences due to minimal residual disease. The presence of functionally vital structures can complicate the choice of resection margins.

Digital diaphanoscopy of the maxillary sinuses: A revival of optical diagnosis for rhinosinusitis.

Purpose: The non-invasive diagnosis of acute rhinosinusitis (ARS) remains an unresolved problem of modern otolaryngology. Analog diaphanoscopy of reduced transillumination (shading) could be enhanced by a digital image processing of the maxillary sinuses. By this means, the limited ergonomics of this safe and low-cost method can be overcome, and merits renewed the investigation.

Synergy of Fluorescence and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Detection of Colorectal Cancer.

Background: Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. There is an urgent need for simple and fast methods to improve tumor detection in the diagnostic and intraoperative setting to avoid complications and provide objective information in distinguishing malignant and benign colorectal tissue. Optical spectroscopy methods have recently shown a great potential for this discrimination in different organs.

Synergy Effect of Combining Fluorescence and Mid Infrared Fiber Spectroscopy for Kidney Tumor Diagnostics.

Matching pairs of tumor and non-tumor kidney tissue samples of four patients were investigated ex vivo using a combination of two methods, attenuated total reflection mid infrared spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy, through respectively prepared and adjusted fiber probes. In order to increase the data information content, the measurements on tissue samples in both methods were performed in the same 31 preselected positions. Multivariate data analysis revealed a synergic effect of combining the two methods for the diagnostics of kidney tumor compared to individual techniques.

Development and Testing of an LED-Based Near-Infrared Sensor for Human Kidney Tumor Diagnostics.

Optical spectroscopy is increasingly used for cancer diagnostics. Tumor detection feasibility in human kidney samples using mid- and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy has been reported (Artyushenko et al., Spectral fiber sensors for cancer diagnostics in vitro.

Comparison of Photo Optical Imaging with Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and Clinical Examination in the Assessment of Inflammatory Activity in Proximal Interphalangeal Joints in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis.

Objective: Lightscan is a novel, rapid, low-cost, easily operated and noninvasive imaging technology used to assess inflammatory activity in proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joints. The results are calculated automatically. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of photo optical imaging (POI), with clinical examination (CE), disease activity score at 28 joints (DAS28)-erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and musculoskeletal ultrasonography (US) in healthy subjects and patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or osteoarthritis (OA).

Diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis using light: correction of motion artefacts and color visualization of multispectral images.

State-of-the-art image-processing methods offer new possibilities for diagnosing diseases using scattered light. The optical diagnosis of rheumatism is taken as an example to show that the diagnostic sensitivity can be improved using overlapped pseudocolored images of different wavelengths, provided that multispectral images are recorded to compensate for any motion-related artefacts that occur during examination.

Fluorescence imaging of heat-stress induced mitochondrial long-term depolarization in breast cancer cells.

Various thermotherapies are based on the induction of lethal heat in target tissues. Spatial and temporal instabilities of elevated temperatures induced in therapy targets require optimized treatment protocols and reliable temperature control methods during thermotherapies. Heat-stress induced effects on mitochondrial transmembrane potentials were analyzed in breast cancer cells, species MX1, using the potential sensor JC-1 (Molecular Probes, Invitrogen, Germany).