Optical pathology study of human abdominal aorta tissues using confocal micro resonance Raman spectroscopy

Resonance Raman (RR) spectroscopic technique has a high potential for label-free and in-situ detection of biomedical lesions in vivo. This study evaluates the ability of RR spectroscopy method as an optical histopathology tool to detect the atherosclerotic plaque states of abdominal aorta in vitro. This part demonstrates the RR spectral molecular fingerprint features from different sites of the atherosclerotic abdominal aortic wall tissues. Total 57 sites of five pieces aortic samples in intimal and adventitial wall from an autopsy specimen were examined using confocal micro Raman system of WITec 300R with excitation wavelength of 532nm. The preliminary RR spectral biomarkers of molecular fingerprints indicated that typical calcified atherosclerotic plaque (RR peak at 964cm(-1)) tissue; fibrolipid plaque (RR peaks at 1007, 1161, 1517 and 2888cm(-1)) tissue, lipid pool with the fatty precipitation (cholesterol) with collagen type I (RR peaks at 864, 1452, 1658, 2888 and 2948cm(-1)) in the soft tissue were observed and investigated.