Non-invasive intravital imaging of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas in live mice

- A non-invasive method to perform intravital microscopy in tongue models for oral cancer.
- This method allows to image cancerous lesions at the tissue, cellular, and subcellular level.
- This method enables longitudinal studies up to 20 weeks.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is one of the most common cancers with a 50% 5-year survival rate. Understanding the mechanisms that control development, progression, and spreading of the tumor to distal sites is of paramount importance to develop effective therapies. Here, we describe a minimally invasive procedure, which enables performing intravital microscopy of the mouse tongue in models for oral cancer and provides structural and dynamic information of the tumors at cellular and subcellular level.