Tissue clearing and 3D reconstruction of digitized, serially sectioned slides provide novel insights into pancreatic cancer

International audience; Pancreatic cancer is currently the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. The clinical hallmarks of this disease include abdominal pain that radiates to the back, the presence of a hypoenhancing intrapancreatic lesion on imaging, and widespread liver metastases. Technologies such as tissue clearing and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of digitized serially sectioned hematoxylin and eosin stained slides, can be used to visualize large (up to two to three-centimeter cube) tissues at cellular resolution. When applied to human pancreatic cancers, these 3D visualization techniques have provided novel insights into the basis of a number of the clinical hallmarks of this disease. Here we describe the clinical features of pancreatic cancer, review techniques for clearing and the 3D reconstruction of digitized microscope slides, and provide examples that illustrate how 3D visualization of human pancreatic cancer at the microscopic level has closed the gap between bench and bedside. Compared to animal models and 2D microscopy, studies of human tissues in 3D can reveal the difference between what can happen and what does happen in human cancers.