Publication Details
Abstract
Accurate medical diagnostics and effective therapeutic interventions that maximize safety and minimize discomfort potentially offer enormous human and financial benefits. By integrating the physical science of materials with the art of optics and their engineering, a new generation of laser-based diagnostic-imaging and therapeutic systems, targeting biomedically relevant anatomical and functional tissue features, is possible. Material-property characterizations that predict the extent of anatomical scattering or determine whether tissue is likely to fluoresce are needed for designing laser-based medical diagnostic systems. Related material-property characterizations enable similar laser-based therapeutic procedures. Targeted coupling between material physics, optics and biomedically relevant tissue enables technological advances towards both earlier-stage and more effective medical diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Diagnostics involving laser-based imaging techniques, light-tissue interactions, and tissue responses are described, followed by corresponding therapeutic procedures and desired material-property characterizations.