Many surgical procedures, including the resection of solid tumors, require histopathological analysis of the tissue that is removed during the surgery. This process is necessary to determine whether additional therapy or surgery is needed. The resected tissue is preserved with a fixative or by flash freezing, and is then sliced into thin sections for staining and transillumination microscopy to evaluate surgical margins. The physical sectioning of these tissues significantly prolongs the amount of time required to process surgically resected tissues, resulting in this workflow taking at least one day. The tissue assessment is always conducted postoperatively, and may necessitate multiple surgeries if the histology indicates that the pathological tissue removal is incomplete.

This technology can mitigate the delays in tissue removal surgery by utilizing an inverted microscope for real-time pathological evaluation of surgically resected tissue, thereby facilitating intraoperative assessment of pathological tissue margins without halting surgical procedures.