Photon emission from normal and tumor human tissues.

Photon emission in the visible and near ultraviolet range by samples of human tissue removed during surgery has been measured by means of a low noise photomultiplier coupled to a data acquisition system. The results show that among the 25 analyzed samples the 9 from normal tissues had an emission rate of the order of some tens of photons/cm2 min, while most of the 16 tumor tissue samples had a very much higher rate.