Medical optical imaging

Medical optical imaging is the use of light as an investigational imaging technique for medical applications, pioneered by American Physical Chemist Britton Chance. Examples include optical microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, laser Doppler imaging, and optical coherence tomography. Because light is an electromagnetic wave, similar phenomena occur in X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves.

Optical imaging systems may be divided into diffusive and ballistic imaging systems. A model for photon migration in turbid biological media has been developed by Bonner et al. Such a model can be applied for interpretation data obtained from laser Doppler blood-flow monitors and for designing protocols for therapeutic excitation of tissue chromophores.