A method for controlling a treatment of a subject by determining a metastatic potential of cells and/or an extent of a potential pathological disorder in a tissue from the subject, the method comprising the steps of:
- (1) contacting a surface of a tissue from the subject with a substrate for a sufficient period of time, wherein the surface of the tissue comprises cells and/or extracellular matrix, and wherein the sufficient period of time allows for a binding comprising associations, non-covalent bonds, and/or covalent bonds to form between the substrate and the cells and/or extracellular matrix, whereby allowing at least a portion of the cells and/or extracellular matrix to bind to the substrate;
- transferring the at least a portion of the cells from the surface of the tissue to the substrate via the binding to the substrate, wherein a cell viability of the at least a portion of the cells after the transferring step is greater than or equal to about 75% to provide living cells thereon and removing the substrate from the surface of the tissue,
- (2) exposing the cells and/or extracellular matrix on the substrate to a voltage sensitive dye (VSD), obtaining a 1st visualization of a resting membrane voltage (Vmem) in a whole layer of cells and/or extracellular matrix on the substrate using a microscope with the VSD, obtaining as a 2nd visualization by visualizing a resting membrane voltage (Vmem) in only the living cells on the substrate with the VSD, and using a computer with software to combine the 1st and 2nd visualizations with a computer aided image analysis that includes a dividing up of both the visualizations each into a plurality of regions for each the 1st visualization and the 2nd visualization, to produce a comparison of a pattern entropy or a measure of an information versus a mean intensity for each cell type, whereby cells from a tumor with a higher metastatic potential have both higher overall entropy and greater variation across 1st visualization;
- (3) using the computer with software to compare a mean intensity and/or brightness to a variance of Vmem, to obtain a measurement of variance of Vmem including a largest variance and a lowest variance, for each region from each of the plurality of regions;
- whereby regions that have a largest variance of Vmem contain a highest metastatic potential of cells and/or a highest amount of abnormal cells, and regions that have a lowest variance of Vmem contain a lowest metastatic potential of cells and/or a lowest amount of abnormal cells;
- whereby cells that are derived from a tumor with a higher metastatic potential include a charge that varies more, whereby cells that are derived from a tumor of low metastatic potential vary less in charge;
- and
- (4) executing a diagnosis and/or a pathological assessment on the tissue of the subject based upon the largest variance and the lowest variance in step (3) and the cells that have the higher metastatic potential and the cells that have the lowest metastatic potential, and controlling a treatment of the subject using the diagnosis and/or the pathological assessment.