  Histopathological examination of surgical biopsies, such as in glioma and
glioblastoma resection, is hindered in current clinical practice by the long
times required for the laboratory analysis and pathological screening,
typically taking several days or even weeks to be completed. We propose here a
transportable, high-density, spectral-scanning based hyperspectral imaging
setup, named HyperProbe1, that can provide in situ, fast biochemical analysis
and mapping of fresh surgical tissue samples, right after excision, and without
the need of fixing or staining. HyperProbe1 is based on spectral scanning via
supercontinuum laser illumination filtered with acousto-optic tuneable filters.
Such methodology allows the user to select any number and type of wavelength
bands in the visible and near-infrared range between 510 and 900 nm (up to 79),
and to reconstruct 3D hypercubes composed of high-resolution, widefield images
of the surgical samples, where each pixel is associated with a complete
spectrum. The system is applied on 11 fresh surgical biopsies of glioma from
routine patients, including different grades of tumour classification.
Quantitative analysis of the composition of the tissue is performed via fast
spectral unmixing to reconstruct mapping of major biomarkers. We also provided
a preliminary attempt to infer tumour classification based on differences of
composition in the samples, suggesting the possibility to use lipid content and
differential cytochrome-c-oxidase concentrations to distinguish between lower
and higher grade gliomas. A proof-of-concept of the performances of HyperProbe1
for quantitative, biochemical mapping of surgical biopsies is demonstrated,
paving the way for improving current post-surgical, histopathological practice
via non-destructive, in situ streamlined screening of fresh tissue samples in a
matter of minutes after excision.
