Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging of Haematoxylin and Eosin-stained Cervical Tissue

This article presents the fluorescence lifetime characterization of haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained cervical tissue using a wide-field time-domain fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope (FLIM). The transient response of epithelial fluorescence was investigated and approximated using a bi-exponential model. It was found that the fluorescence lifetimes of eosin can be correlated to the tissue histology. The preliminary result suggests that the tumor-associated molecules are retained in the tissues even after tissue fixation and staining. The developed FLIM system was successfully applied to detect the histological changes in the tissue samples.