Patent ID: 7822468

Claim:
A method for determining optical properties of a multi-layered tissue, comprising the steps of: (a) illuminating an extended area of the multi-layered tissue by a continuous-wave collimated electromagnetic beam successively from a plurality of directions (θ 0 , φ 0 ), the continuous-wave collimated electromagnetic beam providing for continuous illumination of the multi-layered tissue; (b) illuminating the extended area of the multi-layered tissue, for each of the plurality of illumination directions, at a plurality of different wavelengths (λ); (c) detecting reflected or scattered light leaving the illuminated area from a plurality of detection directions (θ, φ), for each of the plurality of illumination directions and each of the plurality of wavelengths for obtaining light measurement data in a one-dimensional schematic; (d) obtaining light measurement data in a one-dimensional schematic that corresponds to the detected reflected or scattered light obtained in the step of detecting; (e) populating a synthetic database with simulated measurements, the simulated measurements including data based on: (1) using a rigorous forward radiative transfer model for a coupled air/tissue system to compute simulated light measurement data for a particular tissue configuration and a particular measurement configuration, the particular tissue configuration including a particular combination of layer thicknesses and optical properties (α, σ, and g) in the layers of the multi-layered tissue, and the particular measurement configuration including a particular combination of illumination wavelength, illumination direction, and detection direction, (2) repeating the computations in (1) for a plurality of different tissue configurations so as to obtain a portion of the synthetic database including simulated light measurement data associated with a particular measurement configuration, and (3) repeating the computations in (1) and (2) for a plurality of different measurement configurations to create the synthetic database of simulated light measurement data for a plurality of combinations of the particular measurement configurations and the particular tissue configurations; and (f) comparing the light measurement data of the multi-layered tissue with the data of the synthetic database via optimization to determine the optical properties of the multi-layered tissue.