Depolarization of circularly polarized light scattered from biological tissues depends on structural changes in cell nuclei, which can provide valuable information for differentiating cancer tissues concealed in healthy tissues. In this study, we experimentally verified the possibility of cancer identification using scattering of circularly polarized light. We investigated the polarization of light scattered from a sliced biological tissue with various optical configurations. A significant difference between circular polarizations of light scattered from cancerous and healthy tissues is observed, which is sufficient to distinguish a cancerous region. The line-scanning experiments along a region incorporating healthy and cancerous parts indicate step-like behaviors in the degree of circular polarization corresponding to the state of tissues, whether cancerous or normal. An oblique and perpendicular incidence induces different resolutions for identifying cancerous tissues, which indicates that the optical arrangement can be selected according to the priority of resolution.
Keywords: cancer detection; circularly polarized light; multiple scattering; optical biopsy; tissue sample.
© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Biophotonics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.