Retrieval of chromophore concentration in a tissue phantom by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

This study describes a method for analysis of back reflectance spectroscopic data to estimate the concentration of endogenous or exogenous chromophores of tissue, noninvasively and in real time. In the study, tissue phantoms were prepared using intralipid and two chromophores, indocyanine green and methylene blue. Reduced scattering and absorption coefficients ranges of tissue phantoms were kept in the range of biological tissues. Spectroscopic measurements on the tissue phantoms were carried out using a miniature spectrometer, an optical fiber probe, a halogen tungsten light source and a laptop. Monte Carlo simulations of the experiments were run, and an average optical path lengths of the detected photons were obtained for different absorption and scattering coefficients. The average optical path lengths of the photons were used to estimate concentrations of the chromophores in the tissue phantoms. Scattering and absorption coefficients were estimated with an average error of 4.7 and 5.4%, respectively. The developed method has the potential to be used in diagnosis of pathologic tissues based on the variation of biochemical composition of tissues and in photodynamic therapy to estimate the concentration of photosensitizers.