Patent ID: 8568692

Claim:
A method for identifying a subject as a disease candidate, the disease affecting tissue comprising collagen, the method comprising: providing a tissue sample from the subject, wherein the tissue comprises collagen; determining a collagen fibril morphology value of the tissue sample; providing a reference value, wherein the reference value comprises a reference collagen fibril morphology value determined using a tissue sample from a control subject, wherein the tissue sample from the control subject is the same type of tissue as the tissue sample from the subject; comparing the collagen fibril morphology value of the tissue sample to the reference value; and identifying the subject as a disease candidate when the collagen fibril morphology value is different from the reference value, wherein determining the collagen fibril morphology value of the tissue sample comprises imaging the tissue; and measuring D-periodic gap/overlap spacing of a plurality of collagen fibrils to provide the collagen fibril morphology value; wherein measuring D-periodic gap/overlap spacing of a plurality of collagen fibrils to provide the collagen fibril morphology value comprises performing a two-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform for each fibril and analyzing the primary peak from a resulting two-dimensional power spectrum to determine the D-periodic gap/overlap spacing value.