A review of reported tissue optical properties summarizes the wavelength-dependent behavior of scattering and absorption. Formulae are presented for generating the optical properties of a generic tissue with variable amounts of absorbing chromophores (blood, water, melanin, fat, yellow pigments) and a variable balance between small-scale scatterers and large-scale scatterers in the ultrastructures of cells and tissues.

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With existing optical imaging techniques three-dimensional (3-D) mapping of microvascular perfusion within tissue beds is severely limited by the efficient scattering and absorption of light by tissue. To overcome these limitations we have developed a method of optical angiography (OAG) that can generate 3-D angiograms within millimeter tissue depths by analyzing the endogenous optical scattering signal from an illuminated sample. The technique effectively separates the moving and static scattering elements within tissue to achieve high resolution images of blood flow, mapped into the 3-D optically sectioned tissue beds, at speeds that allow for perfusion assessment in vivo. Its development has its origin in Fourier domain optical coherence tomography. We used OAG to visualize the cerebral microcirculation, of adult living mice through the intact cranium, measurements which would be difficult, if not impossible, with other optical imaging techniques.

Intralipidm is an intravenous nutrient consisting of an emulsion of phospholipid micelles and water. Because Intralipid is turbid and has no strong absorption bands in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and is readily available and relatively inexpensive, it is often used as a tissue simulating phantom medium in light dosimetry experiments. In order to assist investigators requiring a controllable medium that over a finite range of wavelengths is optically equivalent to tissue, we have compiled previously published values of the optical interaction coefficients of Intralipid, most of which were measured at a wavelength of 633 nm. We have extended the measurements of the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients from 460 to 690 nm and the total attenuation coefficient from 500 to 890 nm. These measurements show that, for stock 10% Intralipid, the absorption coefficient varies from 0.015 to 0.001 cm-' between 460 and 690 nm, the reduced scattering coefficient varies from 92 to 50 cm-' between 460 and 690 nm, the total attenuation coefficient varies from 575 to 150 cm-l between 500 and 890 nm, and the average cosine of scatter varies from 0.87 to 0.82 between 460 and 690 nm. With these data, we discuss the design of an optically tissue-equivalent phantom consisting of Intralipid and black India ink. 0 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Quantitative dosimetry in the treatment of skin disorders with (laser) light requires information on propagation of light in the skin related to the optical properties of the individual skin layers. This involves the solution of the integro-differential equation of radiative transfer in a model representing skin geometry, as well as experimental methods to determine the optical properties of each skin layer. These activities are unified under the name skin optics. This paper first reviews the current status of tissue optics, distinguishing between the cases of: dominant absorption, dominant scattering, and scattering about equal to absorption. Then, previously published data as well as some current unpublished data on (human) stratum corneum, epidermis and dermis, have been collected and/or (re)analyzed in terms of absorption coefficient, scattering coefficient, and anisotropy factor of scattering. The results are that the individual skin layers show strongly forward scattering (anisotropy factors between 0.7 and 0.9). The absorption and scattering data show that for all wavelengths considered scattering is much more important than absorption. Under such circumstances, solutions to the transport equation for a multilayer skin model and finite beam laser irradiation are currently not yet available. Hence, any quantitative dosimetry for skin treated with (laser) light is currently lacking.