The confocal scanning laser microscope (CSLM) is an exciting new tool in microscopy. It offers improved rejection of out- of-focus `noise' and greater resolution than conventional imaging. By integrating a computer into the system and generating digital image data files, a rapid way of storing, processing, and analyzing images is available to the user. The production of 3D reconstruction representations is easy and effective. The technique of optical sectioning and confocal optics has revolutionized epifluorescence microscopy, the CSLM providing a highly desirable link between conventional light microscopy and electron microscopy. The use of the CSLM in biomedical health sciences is considered in this paper and the functional basics of the instrument are discussed with reference to several important applications in research and diagnostic work, with illustrations from the numerous and continually increasing publications in the area. It is veritably a `solution in search of problems' as this short review demonstrates.

Date Published: 8 July 1999
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 3747, New Approaches in Medical Image Analysis, (8 July 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.351631

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3747:
New Approaches in Medical Image Analysis
Binh Pham; Michael Braun; Anthony John Maeder; Michael P. Eckert, Editor(s)