Handbook of Biomedical Optics

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6.1 Introduction

In this chapter, we present an overview of reectance spectros-

copy (RS), a technique which examines light that has undergone

a combination of elastic scattering and absorption. e reec-

tance signal measured from epithelial tissue is determined by

the structural and biochemical properties of the tissue; there-

fore, analyzing changes in optical properties can be used to non-

invasively probe the tissue microenvironment. e rst part of

this chapter describes the physics, instrumentation, and model-

ing of the scattering and absorption processes. In the latter part

of the chapter, we discuss the use of this technique in two ...