Patent ID: 8213005

Claim:
A method for discriminating between benign and malignant prostate tumors, comprising the steps of: irradiating a tissue sample from a patient with light from an optical source; detecting fluorescence from the tissue sample; identifying and measuring fluorescence intensity maxima in a set of synchronous spectra corresponding to species of tryptophan, elastin, bound and free NADH, and flavins; defining a first ratio R 1 as the ratio between the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to elastin and the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to tryptophan; defining a second ratio R 2 as the ratio between the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to elastin and the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to NADH; defining a third ratio R 3 as the ratio between the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to elastin and the intensity maximum of the excitation band corresponding to flavins; diagnosing the patient as having benign prostate hyperplasia when the ratio R 1 is approximately 0.5, the ratio R 2 is approximately 0.8 and the ratio R 3 is approximately 0.8; and diagnosing the patient as having prostate cancer when the ratio R 1 is at least approximately 0.64, the ratio R 2 is at least approximately 1.26 and the ratio R 3 is at least approximately 2.0.