Effects of optical constants on time-gated transillumination of tissue and tissue-like media

Light transillumination was used to study structures inside turbid media. Time-gated viewing was performed to suppress multiply-scattered light and thus improve spatial resolution. We demonstrate that, for the case of scattering-dominated attenuation (scattering coefficient much greater than the absorption coefficient), the detection of early transmitted light will be practically insensitive to variations in the absorption coefficient. This is an important observation for the development of time-gated optical mammography, since optical mammography using continuous-wave light is based on increased light absorption in the tumour region caused by the neovascularization surrounding a tumour. In order to detect tumours in time-gated viewing it is the scattering coefficient of the tumour that must be characteristic. The scattering coefficient is measured to be lower in the tumour region than in the surrounding breast tissue for one resected breast specimen.