Optical: systems and elements – Compound lens system – Microscope
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-17
2001-12-11
Henry, Jon (Department: 2872)
Optical: systems and elements
Compound lens system
Microscope
C359S391000, C359S662000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06330106
ABSTRACT:
DESCRIPTION
The present invention relates to a tissue specimen holder or tray for use in microscopy and particularly in laser scanning confocal microscopy for imaging sections of surgically excised specimens. The invention is especially suitable for providing a tissue tray which aids in the imaging of a wide variety of tissue samples which may be excised tissues or biopsies of various tissues, such as liver, kidney, cervix, et cetera.
It has been proposed to provide for the imaging of specimens in an immersion liquid which matches the index of refraction of the tissue (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,700, issued Feb. 17, 1998 to P. Corcuff, et al and U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,101, issued Jun. 17, 1980 to L. Trapp, et al). Handling of the tissue specimens and the immersion liquid is difficult. The specimens are small and the liquid can run over a slide on which the specimen is mounted. In short, handling and preparation of specimens for imaging is, with the proposed systems, a messy operation. In addition, variations in optical path between the section of the specimen of interest and the imaging system can distort the image. Such distortions are exacerbated by the corrugated surface provided at the surface of the specimen. For high fidelity imaging, the immersion fluid must closely match the tissue index. Matching the refractive index of the immersion fluid to the tissue greatly reduces the optical refracting power of tissue and therefore the optical path difference introduced by the tissue.
It is a feature of the invention to provide specimen holders or tissue trays optimized for different tissues which are usable with the same imaging system, and without replacement or adjustment of objective lenses. The tray provided by the invention may be used to contain the specimen for short term or long term storage or to transport the tissue for additional processing.
The tray may be disposable after use. The tray contains and also has associated therewith index matching liquids. The tray facilitates the use of such liquids without messy operations and without adversely affecting imaging (imparting distortion to the image because of the presence of the index matching liquids).
The confocal laser scanning microscope imaging systems having objective lenses which are capable of forming images of different sections having different orientations within a specimen may be of the type described in allowed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/683,607 filed Jul. 15, 1996 in the name of R. Rox Anderson et al., now U.S. Pat. No. 5,880,880, issued Mar. 9, 1999, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,788,639, filed in the names of James Zavislan and Jay Eastman and issued Aug. 4, 1998.
Briefly described, a specimen holder in accordance with the invention includes a container having a window through which an optical beam passes into a specimen disposed in the container over the window. The container may be in the form of a specimen tray. The specimen is preferably held in place by clamps which may be automatically applied when a cover of the container is closed. In use, the container includes an immersion liquid which closely matches the index of the tissue. Matching may be to the average index at the surface of the tissue which interfaces with the window. The tissue surface may be corrugated due to natural or surgically produced surface texture. Such corrugation may alter the wavefront of the beam (make the wavefront depart from a section of a sphere) which enters the tissue and is focused in the tissue section of interest. The distortion due to such variations is reduced in accordance with the invention by virtue of minimizing the variation of optical path lengths, notwithstanding that the section at which the beam is focused may be at the surface of the tissue or within the tissue (for example a distance of up to approximately 3 mm from the surface) by use of immersion liquids and coupling liquids and other transmissive elements, including the window, through which the imaging beam passes. The coupling medium is contained in a bag outside the container and facing the window. The bag is made of compliant transmissive material such as a polymer, for example polyethylene, but is of a minimum thickness so as not to have any material effect on the optical path through the bag. The bag contains a liquid coupling medium. Mounted on the bag is a stabilizing plate of transmissive material. The plate is opposed to the window, and preferably contains a lock-in unit such as a magnet or magnetic ring which is received in a notch at the top of a barrel containing the objective lens of the imaging system. The objective lens and the tray is supported on a fixture which is mounted on a common structure with the objective lens via a translation mechanism, which moves the fixture and the container in nominally orthogonal directions, one of which is along the optical axis of the lens. The index of the coupling medium is preferably the same as the index of the immersion liquid. The tray may have a passageway which is pierced by a protrusion on the cover of the tray so as to allow the coupling liquid to fill the tray and provide the immersion liquid. The stabilizing coupling of the plate to the objective lens prevents tilting and maintains the plate perpendicular to the optical axis notwithstanding of motion of the container so as to bring sections of the specimen of interest into focus and to scan the specimen in the plane of the section. In order to minimize optical distortion, due to changes in optical path between the exit pupil of the objective lens and the section of the specimen being imaged, in spite of the corrugations caused by the surface, the difference between the index of refraction of the immersion liquid and the average index of refraction of the tissue at it's surface, multiplied by the height between the peaks of the hills and bottoms of the valleys of the corrugations, is selected to be equal or less than a quarter wavelength at the wavelength of the laser beam used for imaging. Since the average index is a function of tissue type and clinical condition of the patient, the index matching fluids can be selected in the preparation of the tray for the particular tissue to be imaged. In addition, the thickness and index of the window and the plate may be varied depending upon the type of tissue in the tray in order to reduce spherical aberration for the objective lens used in the imaging system.
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Greenwald Roger J.
Zavislan James M.
Henry Jon
Lucid Inc.
Lukacher Kenneth J.
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