Handheld Diffuse Reflectance Spectral Imaging (DRSi) for in-vivo characterization of skin.

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy provides a noninvasive means to measure optical and physiological properties of tissues. To expand on these measurements, we have developed a handheld diffuse reflectance spectral imaging (DRSi) system capable of acquiring wide field hyperspectral images of tissue. The image acquisition time was approximately 50 seconds for a 50x50 pixel image. A transport model was used to fit each spectra for reduced scattering coefficient, hemoglobin concentration and melanin concentration resulting in optical property maps. The system was validated across biologically relevant levels of reduced scattering (5.14% error) and absorption (8.34% error) using tissue simulating phantoms. DRSi optical property maps of a pigmented skin lesion were acquired in vivo. These trends in optical properties were consistent with previous observations using point probe devices.

Development of a noncontact diffuse optical spectroscopy probe for measuring tissue optical properties.

Optical reflectance probes are often used as tools to obtain optical spectra from superficial tissues and subsequently determine optical and physiological properties associated with early stage cancer. These probes, when placed directly on the tissue, are known to cause significant pressure-dependent changes in local optical properties. To address this, we fit the probe with an optical device that images the illumination and collection fibers onto the tissue surface, eliminating the influence of contact probe pressure on the sampling area. The noncontact probe addition addresses new optical conditions that may affect its performance such as tissue surface contour, and specular reflections by implementing an autofocusing mechanism and cross polarization. Extracted optical properties of tissue simulating phantoms yield errors of 3.46% in reduced scattering and 8.62% in absorbance. Autofocusing has extended the depth of field from 4 mm to throughout the 12 mm range of autofocus travel, while cross polarization has removed the incidence angle dependent specular reflection component from the collected signal.

Statistical characterization of chemical noise in MALDI TOF MS by wavelet analysis of multiple noise realizations.

Noise reduction is a critical step in proteomic profiling by mass spectrometry for identification of disease biomarkers. We propose a new method for characterizing chemical noise in MALDI TOF mass spectrometry using wavelet analysis of multiple noise realizations. The use of multiple measurements of the noise process enables a more reliable characterization than can be obtained from a single measurement. We analyzed the distributions and summary statistics of the wavelet coefficients.