Visualization of pathologic changes in liver tissue via polarized light

Abstract

In this work, we applied two polarized light based approaches to visualize histological patterns of liver pathologies. The first one involves acquisition of two images through a polarizing microscope, one image (Ppar) acquired with the analyzer oriented parallel to the polarization of illumination and the other (Pper) acquired with the analyzer oriented perpendicular to the illumination. The final image is based on the polarization ratio, Preconstructed = (Ppar – Pper)/(Ppar + Pper). Using the second technique, the histological specimens were illuminated with a polarized laser beam with wavelength of 635 nm. Polarimetric parameters as azimuth, angle of ellipticity, degree of polarization and reflected power have been measured to quantify the change in the polarization state of the incident light after interaction with the sample of the healthy tissue and of the tissue with abnormal morphological changes.