Clinical Microscopes from ZEISS

• Compliance with Medical Standards: Microscopes used for diagnostic purposes must be designed and manufactured in compliance with ISO 13485 to ensure safety and performance in medical applications. If a microscope is specifically intended for IVD use (e.g., for examining biological specimens like blood or tissue for disease diagnosis), it must also comply with additional IVD-specific regulations such as IVDR (EU Regulation 2017/746) in the European Union or FDA 21 CFR Part 809 for IVD products in the United States.
  
• Details and Magnification: Clinical microscopes must offer high optical resolution and adequate magnification to reveal fine structural details in biological specimens.
• Ergonomic Design: Since clinical use often involves prolonged microscopy sessions, ergonomic accessories such as ergotubes are essential to minimize user fatigue.
• Durability and Reliability: Robust construction and consistent performance are critical for handling the demands of a busy clinical environment.
• Ease of Operation: Intuitive controls and quick adaptability are vital for efficient workflows in high-pressure settings.
• High Resolution Images: Press one button on the microscope for quick detail-rich, image acquisition.
• Work Efficiency: The microscopes support you. Less manual steps necessary save time and allows you to focus on the patient sample.
• Compatibility with Staining Techniques: The microscopes must support various contrasting techniques such as brightfield or fluorescence to visualize specific cellular or microbial structures.

Different staining and contrasting techniques in clinical microscopy may enhance visualization, highlight specific structures, and differentiate between cellular components or microorganisms that may otherwise be indistinguishable. Clinical samples are often transparent or colorless under a light microscope. Staining introduces color to enhance the contrast, making structures like nuclei, cytoplasm, or cell walls more visible. Different stains bind selectively to particular cellular components. For example, Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) highlights nuclei and cytoplasm in tissue samples; Gram Stain differentiates between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Stainings also reveal structural or cellular abnormalities, aiding in the diagnosis of diseases. For instance, Pap stains are used to differentiate between cancerous or precancerous cells in cytology; Ziehl-Neelsen stain allows to visualize acid-fast bacteria, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Additionally, you can use different microscope contrasting techniques to enhance the visibility of certain structures. Phase contrast, for instance, visualizes live, unstained cells using differences in light refraction, while fluorescence contrast target-specific molecules using fluorophores, aiding in identifying pathogens or cellular markers.

Read here examples of most common contrasting and staining techniques: