Based on the analysis of skin morphological structure, the mechanism of cutaneous fluorescence emission and diffuse reflectance formation, a six-layer skin optical model was developed, allowing the variation of blood content in both the upper blood plexus and the deep blood plexus. Monte Carlo simulation was performed to examine the effect of varying tissue blood contents on skin fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectra. The results demonstrated that (1) Both fluorescence and reflectance spectrum can reflect changes of blood content in skin tissue; (2) The impact of blood content in the upper blood plexus on skin spectra intensity is far larger than that in the deep blood plexus, though there is far less blood in the upper blood plexus; (3) Fluorescence and reflectance spectrum could be used to detect or analyze changes of blood content in skin tissue, especially for treatment monitoring and for evaluating the severity of skin diseases that involving the blood plexus or blood pathological changes in the upper dermis.

Date Published: 14 February 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6445, Optical Diagnostics and Sensing VII, 64450D (14 February 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.700336

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6445:
Optical Diagnostics and Sensing VII
Gerard L. Coté; Alexander V. Priezzhev, Editor(s)