Patent ID: 7440659

Claim:
A method for calculating the scattering and absorption characteristics of two layers of tissue, the steps comprising: a) acquiring a first set of diffuse reflectance measurements from a top layer of said two layers of tissue using an instrument which limits the reflectance measurements to a shallow depth beneath the surface of the tissue; b) calculating the absorption coefficient μ a and scattering coefficient μ s of the top layer of tissue using the measurements acquired in step a); c) acquiring a second set of diffuse reflectance measurements from a deeper layer of said two layers of tissue using an instrument which limits the reflectance measurements primarily to a depth below the top layer of tissue; and d) calculating the absorption coefficient μ a and scattering coefficient μ s of the deeper of said two tissue layers and the thickness of the top tissue layer using the top layer coefficients calculated in step b) and the diffuse reflectance measurements acquired in step c).