Characterization of healthy and cancerous human skin tissue utilizing Stokes–Mueller​ polarimetry technique

Characterizing polarization of skin pathologies is still an interested issue for the dermatology community. In a previous study, the present group proposed a Stokes–Muellermatrix polarimetry for differentiating between squamous cell carcinoma tissue and normal healthy tissue in mice. The present study extends our method to the detection of squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and melanoma skin cancer in humans. Using the proposed method, the orientation angle of linear birefringence (α), phase retardance (β), optical rotation angle of circular birefringence (γ), orientation angle of linear dichroism (θd), linear dichroism (D), circular dichroism (R), degrees of linear depolarization (e1 and e2), degree of circular depolarization (e3), and depolarization index (Δ) are extracted for 72 slices of 12 squamous cell carcinoma samples, 72 slices of 12 basal cell carcinoma samples, 18 slices of 3 melanoma skin cancer samples, and 36 slices of 6 healthy samples. The experimental results show that the cancerous tissue exhibits lower phase retardance (β) and linear dichroism (D) than healthy skin tissue. Overall, the proposed method provides a useful insight into the characterization optical properties of human skin cancer by Stokes–Mueller matrix polarimetry. •The decoupled analytical technique based on the Stokes–Mueller polarimetry.•Extracting nine effective optical parameters.•Linear/circular birefringence; linear/circular dichroism; depolarization.•Squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and melanoma skin cancer in humans.•Classification of healthy and cancerous human skin tissue.