iPhone Microscopic Picture of a Biopsy Specimen: A First?

From the photographer:

 

This is a portion of human skin taken with an iPhone from Apple applied to an Olympus microscope. The magnification is 400x.

 

There is a hair follicle surface surrounded by basket-woven cornified layer and topped by erythrocytes (from hemorrhage derived from the surgical procedure).

 

The difficult part of taking the photomicrograph is aligning the lens of the iPhone to the eyepiece of the microscope and getting the right image size and the most uniform lighting. An adapter is in the works in my excited mind.

 

This is an unedited picture. A greenish tinge, easily edited out, is seen in this rendition but not on the screen of the iPhone.

 

The surprising thing is the incredible quality of the iPhone lens, as able to focus so close to the surface of the ocular as to do snapshot from afar subjects. This opens the possibility for pathologists to share biopsy images and collaborate on diagnoses on the phone. What do you think?

 

Aldo Gonzalez-Serva, MD

Done