Identification of calcifications in intracranial neoplasms using two photon excitation fluorescence microscopy

Calcifications within brain tumors may be an indicator of a relatively long survival because a long time is required for the formation of calcium deposits, and may present a novel biomarker associated with response and improved outcome of therapy. In this paper, we describe the use of two-photon excitation fluorescent (TPEF) microscopy combined second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy for high-resolution imaging that can be applied in identification of intratumoral calcifications. Our results demonstrate that the calcification has stronger TPEF signal than the area around it and the emission spectra shows the difference between the two areas clearly. The TPEF image of calcified region corresponds well with the corresponding H&E stained image. In this work, we present that the label-free imaging technique is able to distinguish the calcified mass lesions in intracranial neoplasms reliably.