Several chemo-drugs act as the biocompatible fluorophores. Here, the laser induced fluorescence (LIF) properties of doxorubicin, paclitaxel and bleomycin are investigated. The absorption lines mostly lie over UV range according to the UV-VIS spectra. Therefore, a single XeCl laser provokes the desired transitions of the chemo-drugs of interest at 308 nm. It is shown that LIF spectra are strongly dependent on the fluorophore concentration giving rise to the sensible red shift. This happens when large overlapping area appears between absorption and emission spectra accordingly. The red shift is taken into account as a characteristic parameter of a certain chemo-drug. The fluorescence extinction (α) and self-quenching (k) coefficients are determined based on the best fitting of the adopted Lambert-Beer equation over experimental data. The quantum yield of each chemo-drug is also measured using the linearity of the absorption and emission rates.

We employ laser induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy to discriminate between normal and cancerous human breast (in-vitro) tissues. LIF signals are usually enhanced by the exogenous agents such as Rhodamine 6G (Rd6G) and Coumarin 7 (C7). Although we observe fluorescence emissions in both fluorophores, Rd6G-stained tissues give notable spectral red shift in practice. The latter is a function of dye concentration embedded in tissues. We find that such red shifts have a strong dependence on the dye concentration in bare, in stained healthy, and in malignant breast tissues, signifying variations in tubular abundances. In fact, the heterogeneity of cancerous tissues is more prominent mainly due to their notable tubular densities- which can provide numerous micro-cavities to house more dye molecules. We show that this can be used to discriminate between the healthy and unhealthy specimens in different biological scaffolds of ordered (healthy) and disordered (cancerous) tissues. It is demonstrated that the quenching process of fluorophore' molecules slows down in the neoplastic tumors according to the micro-partitioning, too.

Here, the authors have utilized laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to distinguish cancerous tissues from normal ones. For this purpose, the plasma emission spectra of the normal and cancerous tissues taken from four different organs of interest, i.e, breast, colon, larynx, and tongue are analyzed via the excitation of a pulsed Neodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (ND: YAG) laser at 1064 nm. Results show that the abundance of the trace elements such as Ca, Mg, and Na trace elements are elevated in the cancerous tissues with respect to normal ones. In addition, inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy and quadrupole-mass spectroscopy are employed to support the findings given by LIBS. Furthermore, the plasma characteristics such as temperature and electron density are probed by data processing of the plasma spectra at local thermal equilibrium condition as an alternative technique to discriminate between the normal and malignant tissues. It is shown that more energetic plasma is created on the neoplastic specimens resulting in higher electron density and plasma temperature due to the corresponding intense atomic/ionic characteristic emissions of species. The simplicity and low cost of processes benefits the physicians to encourage the clinical application of LIBS in near future.

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