Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook

Chapter 23

Optical Fibers for Biomedical

Applications

Moshe Ben-David

1

and Israel Gannot

2

1

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tet-Aviv Universi ty, Tel-Aviv, Israel

2

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Washington

University, Washington, D.C.

23.1 INTRODUCTION

Optical fibers have revolutionized medicine in many ways. They have

advanced both diagnostics and treatments capabilities. Their major advantages

lie in the fact that they are thin and flexible so they can be introduced into the

body to remotely sense, image, and treat.

This capability enabled the introduction of minimally invasive procedures,

which became the preferred choice ...