Machine-learning classification of non-melanoma skin cancers from image features obtained by optical coherence tomography.

Background/purpose: A number of publications have suggested that optical coherence tomography (OCT) has the potential for non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer. Currently, individual diagnostic features do not appear sufficiently discriminatory. The combined use of several features may however be useful.

Time spent on treatment (TSOT). An independent assessment of disease severity in atopic dermatitis.

Introduction: Time spent on treatment (TSOT) appears to reflect disease severity in pediatric patients with atopic dermatitis (AD). Our purpose was to examine the relationship between time spent on treatment and parental psychological parameters such as anxiety and depression.

Methods: TSOT was studied in a group of parents of patients with AD participating in an eczema school.

Extraction of optical scattering parameters and attenuation compensation in optical coherence tomography images of multilayered tissue structures.

A recently developed analytical optical coherence tomography (OCT) model [Thrane et al., J. Opt.

Advanced modelling of optical coherence tomography systems.

Analytical and numerical models for describing and understanding the light propagation in samples imaged by optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems are presented. An analytical model for calculating the OCT signal based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle valid both for the single and multiple scattering regimes is reviewed. An advanced Monte Carlo model for calculating the OCT signal is also reviewed, and the validity of this model is shown through a mathematical proof based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle.

Derivation of a Monte Carlo method for modeling heterodyne detection in optical coherence tomography systems.

A Monte Carlo (MC) method for modeling optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurements of a diffusely reflecting discontinuity embedded in a scattering medium is presented. For the first time to the authors' knowledge it is shown analytically that the applicability of an MC approach to this optical geometry is firmly justified, because, as we show, in the conjugate image plane the field reflected from the sample is delta-correlated from which it follows that the heterodyne signal is calculated from the intensity distribution only. This is not a trivial result because, in general, the light from the sample will have a finite spatial coherence that cannot be accounted for by MC simulation.

Comment on "Excitation with a focused, pulsed optical beam in scattering media: diffraction effects".

To incorporate the wave properties of light, it was recently proposed to modify the Monte Carlo-based photon transport model to a semi-quantum-mechanical representation by considering each ray as a photon wave packet [Appl. Opt. 39, 5244 (2000)].