Fibre-laser IR luminescence diagnostics of malignant tumours using rare earth porphyrins.

To eliminate the masking effect of the background luminescence of endogenic substances in biological tissues and to increase the luminescence contrast values of malignant tumours, sarcoma-implanted mice were administered with ytterbium porphyrins instead of free porphyrin radicals. This was followed by in vivo luminescence localization of tumours using fibre-laser spectrofluorometry. The luminescence contrast values obtained reached 10-45 which is evidently not a limit.