Preliminary study of detecting neoplastic growths in vivo with real time calibrated autofluorescence imaging.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the capabilities of a calibrated autofluorescence imaging method for detecting neoplastic lesions. An imaging system that records autofluorescence images calibrated by the cross-polarized reflection images from excitation was instrumented for the evaluation. Cervical tissue was selected as the living tissue model. Sixteen human subjects were examined in vivo with the imaging system before routine examination procedures. It was found that calibrated autofluorescence signals from neoplastic lesions were generally lower than signals from normal cervical tissue. Neoplastic lesions can be differentiated from surrounding normal tissue based on the contrast in the calibrated autofluorescence. The effects of the optical properties of tissue on the calibrated fluorescence imaging were investigated.