title: Toward instrument-independent quantitative measurement of fluorescence intensity in fiber-optic spectrometer systems.
abstract: Fluorescence has been widely used in biological research and clinical diagnosis. One challenge facing the rapid growth of fluorescence application is the inability to make comparable fluorescence intensity measurements during a long period of clinical study and across laboratories. We propose a method to implement system-independent fluorescence intensity calibration in fiber-optic fluorescence spectrometer systems. This method is based on a National Institute for Standards and Technology traceable standard light source for system spectral response calibration, and a fluorescence reference standard for fluorescence intensity calibration. Human skin in vivo and a fluorescence phantom made of fluorescent microspheres were measured with two different system configurations and at different probe-sample distances. Experimental results showed very good agreement with theory after system-independent fluorescence intensity calibration.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Advanced Medical Photonics, Department of Cancer Imaging, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1L3, Canada.
authors.forename: Jianhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Harvey
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lui
authors.forename: David I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: McLean
authors.forename: Haishan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zeng
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration; D004867:Equipment Design; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D008027:Light; D055100:Optical Fibers; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*