Virtual formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded staining of fresh brain tissue via stimulated Raman CycleGAN model

Sci Adv. 2024 Mar 29;10(13):eadn3426. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adn3426. Epub 2024 Mar 27.

Abstract

Intraoperative histology is essential for surgical guidance and decision-making. However, frozen-sectioned hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining suffers from degraded accuracy, whereas the gold-standard formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) H&E is too lengthy for intraoperative use. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy has shown rapid histology of brain tissue with lipid/protein contrast but is challenging to yield images identical to nucleic acid-/protein-based FFPE stains interpretable to pathologists. Here, we report the development of a semi-supervised stimulated Raman CycleGAN model to convert fresh-tissue SRS images to H&E stains using unpaired training data. Within 3 minutes, stimulated Raman virtual histology (SRVH) results that matched perfectly with true H&E could be generated. A blind validation indicated that board-certified neuropathologists are able to differentiate histologic subtypes of human glioma on SRVH but hardly on conventional SRS images. SRVH may provide intraoperative diagnosis superior to frozen H&E in both speed and accuracy, extendable to other types of solid tumors.

MeSH terms

  • Brain*
  • Coloring Agents*
  • Eosine Yellowish-(YS)
  • Formaldehyde
  • Humans
  • Paraffin Embedding / methods
  • Staining and Labeling

Substances

  • Coloring Agents
  • Eosine Yellowish-(YS)
  • Formaldehyde