Abstract
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a common liver disorder caused by fatty liver. Because NASH is associated with fibrotic and morphological changes in liver tissue, a direct imaging technique is required for accurate staging of liver tissue. For this purpose, in this study we took advantage of two label-free optical imaging techniques, second harmonic generation (SHG) and auto-fluorescence (AF), using two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM). Three-dimensional ex vivo imaging of tissues from NASH model mice, followed by image processing, revealed that SHG and AF are sufficient to quantitatively characterize the hepatic capsule at an early stage and parenchymal morphologies associated with liver disease progression, respectively.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis are common chronic liver diseases primarily caused by hepatitis viral infection
Because non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) causes liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and other lethal disorders such as cardiovascular disease, it is essential to accurately diagnose NASH to prevent the progression of fibrosis [2,3,4]
To evaluate the fibrotic and morphologic changes of liver tissues in a disease model, we first developed a NASH model and used a two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM) system to perform combined second harmonic generation (SHG) and AF imaging of ex vivo liver tissues dissected from these mice
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis are common chronic liver diseases primarily caused by hepatitis viral infection. Because NASH causes liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and other lethal disorders such as cardiovascular disease, it is essential to accurately diagnose NASH to prevent the progression of fibrosis [2,3,4]. Definitive diagnosis of NASH requires histopathological examination of liver biopsy samples. In such examinations, steatosis, lobular inflammation, and fibrosis are important pathological findings that contribute to a diagnosis of NASH. Steatosis, lobular inflammation, and fibrosis are important pathological findings that contribute to a diagnosis of NASH Detection of these pathological findings in patients with NASH is difficult, both because there is a sampling bias and because the diagnosis depends on the experience of the pathologist [7]
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