Optical characterization of small biopsy samples

摘要

Optical characterization of biopsies can be used to discern between tissues when performing diffuse optical tomography of the female breast. The theory used for deriving the optical properties of such highly scattering media is based on the diffusion approximation. However, focusing the study in the regime of geometries comparable to the scattering mean free path, the diffusion approximation must be rearranged. Here we present several theoretical assumptions in this direction. In order to investigate the validity of the improved theory, experiments were made involving the transmittance of laser light through turbid phantom models. After the validation of our theoretical model, we have managed to derive the optical properties of over 50 excised breast tissue samples.