High-dose laser exposure to tissue causes thermal damage and significant changes in tissue optical properties. Samples of porcine dermis and subcutaneous fat were immersed in a temperature-controlled water bath to induce a range of thermal damage. Temperature history was recorded to quantify the damage with the Arrhenius integral. Samples were then measured in a double integrating sphere setup and optical coefficients computed using the inverse adding doubling method. The tissues demonstrate non-monotonic changes in optical properties with respect to induced thermal damage. These results will inform medical scenarios and computational models where optical interaction with damaged tissues is expected.
Accurate values of the optical properties of skin and subcutaneous fat are important for a variety of applications, such as optical imaging techniques and computational modeling of possible hazardous laser exposure. Several studies are available in the published literature that report skin optical properties, but the method of tissue preparation and storage in these experiments can be variable. These methods include the application of some form of cold storage, such as refrigeration or freezing, which may in turn affect the optical properties of the tissues compared to the in vivo or freshly excised case. We measured the absorption and scattering coefficients of skin and subcutaneous fat samples prior to and following various methods of cold storage, particularly refrigeration, slow freezing, and flash freezing. Tissues were collected from two subjects in order to capture biological variability. We employed a double integrating sphere setup and the inverse adding-doubling method to determine optical properties. The results of this investigation will help contextualize existing studies on tissue optical properties and enable informed procedural design for future measurements.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.