Development and use of a novel automated Mueller matrix polarization imaging system for In-vivo imaging of lesions

摘要

The ability to detect skin cancer accurately, quickly, and non-invasively has been the object of researchers for many years. This paper describes a novel Automated Mueller Matrix Polarimetric Imaging System that has the potential for non-invasive determination of cancerous lesions from their benign counterparts. Our system collects the 16 images used to calculate the 16 Mueller matrix elements in less than 70 seconds. To validate the system, we used known samples that show a maximum error of 1.41 % in the Mueller matrix (MM). Tissue-phantoms with varying concentrations of scatterers were used to determine the effects of changes in the sample scattering coefficient (μ_s) on the Mueller matrix. The system was also used to image a benign lesion on a human subject to show the ability to collect of polarization information from the skin.