Tissue Mimicking Phantoms for Biomedical Optics: A Systematic Review of Inverse Adding-Doubling Characterization and...

Area of Science:

• Biophotonics
• Optical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• Tissue-mimicking phantoms are vital for calibrating biophotonic techniques and enabling clinical translation.
• The inverse adding-doubling (IAD) method is a standard for optical property determination but suffers from inter-laboratory variability.
• Variability stems from differences in experimental setups, loss-compensation methods, and theoretical models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze existing studies on phantom optical properties and identify sources of variability.
• To propose a unified framework for comparing phantom fabrication and optical properties.
• To guide the development of reliable tissue-equivalent phantoms for biophotonic device calibration.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a PRISMA-guided review of 10 experimental studies published between 2015 and 2025.
• Developed a comparison framework based on scattering power-law parameters (a, b).
• Utilized nonlinear regression to analyze continuous reduced scattering spectra (μ's(λ)) and fit power-law models.

Main Results:

• Selected polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastisol formulations demonstrated dermal-like scattering slopes.
• The power-law model provided consistent spectral descriptions of scattering properties (R̄² = 0.98).
• A framework was established to map phantom properties in (a, b) space, linking fabrication to optical targets.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework helps interpret variability in phantom optical property measurements.
• It provides practical guidance for developing tissue-equivalent phantoms with reproducible optical properties.
• This approach facilitates reliable calibration of biophotonic devices for clinical applications.