Spectral imaging and biomedicine: new devices, new approaches

The advent of molecular medicine and new demands on pathologists to deliver prognostic and therapy-shaping analyses has created a need for enhanced imaging tools. Spectral imaging coupled with microscopy is a relatively novel and largely unexplored technology that holds out promise of satisfying, at least in part, such a need. New optical methods for spectral discrimination are being combined with powerful software approaches, often originally developed in different fields, to explore and exploit a wealth of information beyond the capabilities of conventional color-based imaging approaches. Some of the new devices and software tools are described and illustrated here. While the results are indeed promising, it must be stressed that this field is in its infancy, and the optimal uses of this technology in the clinical arena still await definition.