World Journal of Oncology, ISSN 1920-4531 print, 1920-454X online, Open Access
Article copyright, the authors; Journal compilation copyright, World J Oncol and Elmer Press Inc
Journal website https://wjon.elmerpub.com

Original Article

Volume 16, Number 3, June 2025, pages 311-316

Differentiating Malignant and Healthy Areas in Isolated Kidney Samples Through Infrared Visualization Techniques

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1. Setup of the experiment. Arrows are used to show the CCD camera and LEDs. Between them lies biological tissue. To prevent the influence of daylight, experiments were conducted in complete darkness.
Figure 2.
Figure 2. Infrared image of a small section of a non-cancerous kidney sample, showing uniform brightness throughout all areas.
Figure 3.
Figure 3. The left side shows a portion of cancerous tissue alongside nearby healthy tissues, extracted from the entire kidney after a radical nephrectomy. The right side shows the infrared image of this specimen. The dark areas correspond to cancerous tissue. The light areas correspond to the healthy portions of the tissue. The margins between the malignant and non-cancerous tissues are well-defined.
Figure 4.
Figure 4. Histomorphological images. Left image corresponds to dark area in the Figure 3. The image shows large, polygonal cells with clear cytoplasm and distinct cell borders. The nuclei are centrally located and appear somewhat irregular. The normal kidney architecture is lost. There is no clear organization into tubules or glomeruli. The tissue is highly cellular, with cells appearing crowded and disorganized. There is minimal supporting connective tissue visible between the tumor cells. Right image corresponds to light area in Figure 3 (healthy kidney tissue). Key features: The round structure in the center is a glomerulus, a normal component of kidney tissue involved in blood filtration. Surrounding the glomerulus are well-organized tubules, lined by cuboidal epithelial cells. The cells are uniform, with regular nuclei and well-defined borders. There is a balanced amount of connective tissue providing structural support (× 400, caliber 100 µm).

Table

Table 1. Tumor Characteristics
 
Kidney tumor32 cases
Tumor dimensions, cm3.5 - 7
Age, years46 - 76 (mean 59.5)
Gender
  Female13
  Male19
Histomorphological types
  Clear cells16
  Papillary6
  Chromophobe7
  Collecting duct cancer3
Stage
  T1a N0M0 tumor ≤ 4 cm14
  T1b N0M0 tumor > 4 cm, but ≤ 7 cm18