Patent ID: 8005528

Claim:
An apparatus for elucidating reaction dynamics of photoreactive compounds present in a region of interest (ROI) of a tissue submitted to a substantially homogeneous magnetic field, said apparatus comprising: means for applying said substantially homogeneous magnetic field to said ROI, said means being external to said ROI and not in contact with said ROI; means for controllably varying the strength of said magnetic field according to a predetermined temporal pattern; a Hall-effect probe connected to a magnetic flux meter to measure the strength of said magnetic field; means for illuminating said ROI with a therapeutic optical beam, the combination of applying a magnetic field and illuminating said ROI with said therapeutic optical beam activating chemical reactions in said photoreactive compounds and affecting the subsequent evolution of said chemical reactions; means for illuminating said ROI with a probe optical beam; means for collecting light emitted from said ROI, to produce a collected light, said emitted light consisting of the portion of said probe optical beam that is transmitted through said ROI or the portion of said probe optical beam that is backscattered from said ROI according to a photoluminescence process; means for detecting said collected light over at least one predetermined wavelength band; and means for analyzing said detected light.