Statistical characterization of breast tissue composition in cancer patients using a diffuse optical scanner

The Diffuse Optical Breast Scanning (DOB-Scan) Probe, consisting near-infrared LEDs and linear CCD sensor, has been developed as a portable and non-invasive breast cancer screening tool. In this study, a series of phantom experiments is performed to collect sufficient data under various combinations of probe settings. The effect of LED output intensity, CCD integration time and materials with different optical properties to the measurement from the probe is investigated and statistically modelled. This ensures that raw data collected from unknown media under any settings can be properly converted into reflectance curves that match with closed-form approximations to the diffusion theory. The scaling model derived is applied to the data collected from cancer patients who undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the collaborated clinical study between SFU and BCCAB. Optical properties and tissue constituent concentrations are extracted from the mathematical approximations to estimate the progress of the treatment for each patient.