Patent ID: 6865408

Claim:
An apparatus for non-invasive determination of an attribute of human tissue by quantitative near infrared spectroscopy comprising: a. an illumination subsystem which generates near infrared light; b. a tissue sampling subsystem, in optical communication with and receiving light from said illumination subsystem, including means for irradiating human tissue with at least a portion of said received light and collecting at least a portion of said light diffusely reflected from said human tissue; c. a calibration maintenance subsystem selectively optically coupled to said tissue sampling subsystem for receiving at least a portion of said light and diffusely reflecting a portion thereof; d. an FTIR spectrometer subsystem selectively optically coupled to (i) said tissue sampling subsystem to receive at least a portion of said light diffusely reflected from said tissue, or (ii) selectively optically coupled to said calibration maintenance subsystem to receive at least a portion of said infrared light diffusely reflected therefrom, or (iii) a combination thereof, said FTIR spectrometer subsystem including a spectrometer that creates an interferogram, said FTIR spectrometer subsystem further including a detector which receives the interferogram and converts said interferogram to a communicable representation; e. a data acquisition subsystem which receives the communicable representation of the interferogram, said data acquisition subsystem including means for modifying said communicable representation and producing an analyzable representation thereof; and f. a computing subsystem for receiving said analyzable representation and further including means for determining the attribute from said analyzable representation, wherein in combination said subsystems provide a clinically relevant level of precision and accuracy.