Towards in-situ imaging of nonmelanoma skin cancers

Nonmelanoma skin cancers (NSMC) are among the most common malignancies in the US today. Mohs micrograph surgery (MMS) is the gold standard for most NSMC. However, MMS is time-consuming as it employs frozen section analysis (FSA) for intraoperative assessment. Each FSA can require up to 60 minutes per excision. Using photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS™) we demonstrate first results of imaging tissue morphology on human skin with a non-contact reflection-mode method, enabling rapid label-free pathological assessment. These images are validated against toluidine blue stained sections. The authors believe the proposed method represents a vital step towards an in-situ assessment of NSMC.