Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy characterization of hemoglobin and intralipid solutions: in vitro measurements with continuous variation of absorption and scattering

Absorption and scattering processes in biological tissues are studied through reflectance spectroscopy in tissue-like phantoms. For this aim, an experimental setup is designed to independently control both processes in hemoglobin and intralipid solutions. From the analysis of the obtained spectra, a simple empirical power law equation is found that relates absorbance with scattering and absorption coefficients. This relationship includes three wavelength independent parameters, which can be determined geometry from in vitro measurements for each particular optical optode. The dependence of the optical path length on the absorption and scattering coefficients is also analyzed, and estimations of this parameter for physiological conditions are presented. This study is useful to better understand the scattering phenomena in biological tissue, and to obtain absolute concentration of absorber particles when a homogeneous medium can be assumed.