title: Photon diffusion near the point-of-entry in anisotropically scattering turbid media.
abstract: From astronomy to cell biology, the manner in which light propagates in turbid media has been of central importance for many decades. However, light propagation near the point-of-entry in turbid media has never been analytically described, until now. Here we report a straightforward and accurate method that overcomes this longstanding, unsolved problem in radiative transport. Our theory properly treats anisotropic photon scattering events and takes the specific form of the phase function into account. As a result, our method correctly predicts the spatially dependent diffuse reflectance of light near the point-of-entry for any arbitrary phase function. We demonstrate that the theory is in excellent agreement with both experimental results and Monte Carlo simulations for several commonly used phase functions.
authors.affiliation: Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging and Photonics, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vitkin
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Turzhitsky
authors.forename: Le
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.forename: Lianyu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Irving
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Itzkan
authors.forename: Eugene B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Hanlon
authors.forename: Lev T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Perelman
mesh_terms: D016880:Anisotropy; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004058:Diffusion; D004848:Epithelium / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D017785:Photons; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data