QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE IN VIVO TISSUE EXAMINATION USING TIME RESOLVED SPECTROSCOPY

摘要

A system for examination of biologicaltissue of a subject (10) includes a light source(14), (16), a light detector (22), a gatedintegrator (26), (28), and an integrator timingcontrol (19) adapted to integrate detectedphotons over at least two selected time intervals.The light source (14), (16) is adapted tointroduce into the tissue, at an input port, pulses ofelectromagnetic radiation of a selectedwavelength in the visible or infrared range. Thedetector (22) detects photons of modified pulsesthat have migrated in the tissue from theinput port. The integrator (26), (28) registers allphotons detected over preselected timeintervals of the arrival time of the modified pulses.A processor (30) adapted to receive data fromthe integrator (26), (28) determines aphysiological property of the examined tissue basedon the number of photons integrated over eachtime interval.