In vivo reflectance of blood and tissue as a function of light wavelength

Light reflectance from soft tissue has been utilized in noninvasive clinical measurement devices such as the photoplethysmograph and the reflectance pulse oximeter. Incident light on the skin travels into the underlying layers and is in part reflected back to the surface. This paper describes the reflectance of light from in vivo tissue for wavelengths in the range from 420 to 940 nm, based on photon diffusion theory and on experimental results from studies of 17 subjects. The results show a minimum reflectance and a peak sensitivity to the blood pulsations in the wavelength range from 510 to 590 nm. Skin pigmentation is seen to attenuate reflectance rather than altering the character of the modulation spectra. Based on the model introduced in this paper, the dependence of modulation spectra on mean blood fractional volume as well as wavelength is also described theoretically, and corroborated by further experimental data at 570 and 630 nm. At these latter wavelengths, the signal-to-noise ratio was calculated for the blood volume pulsation signal in the presence of physiological noise. The median for calculated ratios of reflectance modulation by blood pulsation and ratios of signal to noise between the two wavelengths were 13.1 and 7.5, respectively, for 93 sites in nine subjects. These results are seen to be consistent with the theory.