Feasibility of interstitial near-infrared radiance spectroscopy platform for ex vivo canine prostate studies: optical properties extraction, hemoglobin and water concentration, and gold nanoparticles detection.

The canine prostate is a close match for the human prostate and is used in research of prostate cancers. Determining accurately optical absorption and scattering properties of the gland in a wide spectral range (preferably in a minimally invasive way), linking optical properties to concentrations of major endogenous chromophores, and detecting the presence of localized optical inhomogeneities like inclusions of gold nanoparticles for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes, are among the major challenges for researchers. The goal of the article is to demonstrate a feasibility of the multifunctional radiance spectroscopy platform in providing the required information. For ex vivo canine prostate, extraction of the effective attenuation and diffusion coefficients using relative cw radiance measurements was demonstrated in the 650- to 900-nm range. The derived absorption coefficient was decomposed to contributions from 9.0 μM HbO₂, 29.6 μM Hb, and 0.47 fractional volume of H₂O. Detection of a localized inclusion containing ∼1.5·1010 gold nanorods (0.8 μg Au) at 10 mm distance from the urethra was achieved with the detector in the urethra and the light source in a virtual rectum position. The platform offers the framework for a systematic study of various chromophores in the prostate that can be used as comprehensive diagnostic markers.