Multi-excitation fluorescence spectroscopy for analysis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Background and objectives: the increasing incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) and the consequent progression to cirrhosis is expected to become a major cause of liver transplantation. This will exacerbate the organ donor shortage and mean that ‘marginal ’ fatty liver grafts are more frequently used. Autofluorescence spectroscopy is a fast, objective and non-destructive method to detect change in the endogenous fluorophores distribution and could prove to be a valuable tool for NAFLD diagnosis and transplant graft assessment. Materials and methods: A system was constructed consisting of a fibre probe with two laser diodes that provided excitation light at 375 nm and 405 nm, and an imaging spectrograph system. This was used to distinguish fluorescence spectra acquired from the harvested livers from mic