Ex Vivo Fluorescence Microscopy: Clinical Applications in Dermatology and Surgical Pathology

Ex vivo fluorescence confocal microscopy (FCM) is a novel imaging technique that can be applied on freshly excised tumors for rapid bedside pathology for Mohs surgery and in general pathology. The first clinical application of FCM was on skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma, for which it has demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity for margin assessment. Later, FCM was applied on freshly excised specimens in general pathology and in particular on breast cancer samples. Preliminary studies highlighted the potential applicability of this fascinating new tool to characterize the tumor and obtain a rapid detection of residual tumor in surgical margins.