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From: Proceedings 10th World Congress of Cryosurgery
New Methods for Monitoring Cryosurgery, Light Imaging

November 1998
David Otten, David Benaron, Boris Rubinsky
Frozen tissue can be easily distinguished from unfrozen tissue with visible light. While this property can be used to determine the extent of freezing on the outer surface of issue, direct visualization of internal freezing fails as photon scattering renders tissues optically turbid. We have developed two techniques that use light to image the process of freezing inside tissue. One of the techniques employs time-evolving transmittance spectra analysis and the second photon count analysis. Results obtained with these new techniques will be described. It will be shown that light imaging technique has advantages over ultrasound because the process of freezing can be imaged in any direction, with the light transducer facing the frozen tissue or the unfrozen tissue. In contrast ultrasound can image only with the transducer facing the unfrozen tissue. In relation to MRI, lighting imaging is significantly less expensive and ]ends itself to use in conventional surgery facilities.

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