Optical spectroscopy of parotid gland in case of adenopathy.

Reflectance and laser induced fluorescence spectroscopies were employed for the first time in a limited pilot study to probe freshly excised human parotid tissues (adenomatous and adjacent). In human parotid tissue, measurements were associated with endogenous fluorophores NADH and collagen, as well as tissue optical properties, with larger relative collagen content detected from normal to adenomatous tissues. The observed significant differences between the fluorescence and reflectance properties of normal, and adenomatous tissues present an opportunity for future statistical validation on a larger patient pool and indicate a potential application of multimodal optical spectroscopy to differentiate between pathological and normal parotid tissue states at different stages of disease.