As global population and average longevity increase, there is inevitably a proportional rise in the number of patients in hospitals. For medical centers to keep pace, there is a need for fast, reliable screening of disease patterns. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is used as a phase-3 diagnostic solution to determine the nature of a group of specific diseases that can not be characterised with the standard/routine diagnostic methods such as molecular diagnostics and light microscopy.

As our knowledge of biological function at the nanoscale continues to grow, so does our understanding of pathological dysfunctions. TEMs have long played an important role in major pathology labs, providing a definitive diagnosis of certain conditions that are well beyond the resolving power of light microscopes. Examples include;

• Membrane thickness variations in kidney disease
• Mitochondrial changes in muscle disorders
• Cilia in neonatal lung disease
• Certain skin cancers and viral infections

In other cases, electron microscopy is used to complement the results of other diagnostic techniques. The use of TEM in medical diagnosis will surely increase as our knowledge of nanobiology continues to grow. 

Collaboration, automation, and accessibility

The direct and immediate human impact of diagnostic results makes accuracy and reliability paramount concerns, putting a high value on image quality. The ability to share digital images instantly, across your facility or across the world, is also important in the collaborative environment of modern medicine. The high quality of Thermo Fisher Scientific electron microscopes is coupled with a suite of tools for data management and sharing, ensuring results are available as soon as possible.  

Additionally, automated analysis of digital images is becoming increasingly common in medical diagnostics. Advances in automation and sample preparation promise to further improve the speed and reliability of TEM analysis, as well as greatly increase accessibility.

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