Fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging, which exploit
native tissue fluorescence (autofluorescence), have
emerged as non-invasive real-time tissue diagnostic
tools and have been under intensive studies in the
past years. However, traditional autofluorescence
techniques have suffered from tissue scattering and
absorption, and thus are generally not efficient for
tissue diagnostics. This book introduces a study
using polarized autofluorescence and polarized
reflectance techniques to reduce tissue scattering
and absorption effects and to reveal endogenous
optical signatures of skin cancer. Normal and
malignant melanocytic cells can be efficiently
discriminated using fluorescence anisotropy of
cellular NADH. Enzymatic dermis degradation mimicking
tumor invasion can be successfully followed by the
fluorescence emission and polarized reflectance of
the dermis. These results should thus shed lights on
the understanding of the endogenous optical
signatures associated with cancer development, and
should be a valuable reference for researchers
working in the fields of biomedical optics and
biophotonics.