Abstract In recent years, technological advances in tissue preparation, high‐throughput volumetric microscopy, and computational infrastructure have enabled rapid developments in nondestructive 3D pathology, in which high‐resolution histologic datasets are obtained from thick tissue specimens, such as whole biopsies, without the need for physical sectioning onto glass slides. While 3D pathology generates massive datasets that are attractive for automated computational analysis, there is also a desire to use 3D pathology to improve the visual assessment of tissue histology. In this perspective, we discuss and provide examples of potential advantages of 3D pathology for the visual assessment of clinical specimens and the challenges of dealing with large 3D datasets (of individual or multiple specimens) that pathologists have not been trained to interpret. We discuss the need for artificial intelligence triaging algorithms and explainable analysis methods to assist pathologists or other domain experts in the interpretation of these novel, often complex, large datasets.
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Nondestructive 3D Pathology with Light-Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy for Translational Research and Clinical Assays
In recent years, there has been a revived appreciation for the importance of spatial context and morphological phenotypes for both understanding disease progression and guiding treatment decisions. Compared with conventional 2D histopathology, which is the current gold standard of medical diagnostics, nondestructive 3D pathology offers researchers and clinicians the ability to visualize orders of magnitude more tissue within their natural volumetric context. This has been enabled by rapid advances in tissue-preparation methods, high-throughput 3D microscopy instrumentation, and computational tools for processing these massive feature-rich data sets. Here, we provide a brief overview of many of these technical advances along with remaining challenges to be overcome. We also speculate on the future of 3D pathology as applied in translational investigations, preclinical drug development, and clinical decision-support assays.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1934292
- PAR ID:
- 10482702
- Publisher / Repository:
- PubMed
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1936-1327
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 231 to 252
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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