Confocal imaging of benign and malignant proliferative skin lesions in vivo

Near-infrared confocal reflectance microscopy (CM) provides non-invasive real-time images of thin en-face tissue sections with high resolution and contrast. Imaging of cells, nuclei, other organelles, microvessels, and hair follicles has been possible at resolution comparable to standard histology, to a maximum depth of 250-300 mu m in human skin in vivo. We have characterized psoriasis as a prototype of benign proliferative skin conditions, and non-pigmented skin malignancies in vivo (basal and squamous cell carcinomas -BCC, SCC-) based on their unstained, native histologic features using CM. Our data shows that reflectance CM may potentially diagnose and morphometrically evaluate proliferative skin lesions in vivo.