Abstract

Laser-induced fluorescence spectra were recorded during the exposure of normal, atherosclerotic cadaveric aortic tissue, and cervical biopsy samples taken during hysterectomy to He-Cd (442 nm) laser irradiation. Eleven abdominal aortic and femoral artery samples from two autopsies and three by-pass operations were obtained in an unfixed state within 12 hours of their excision. Similarly, twelve tissue samples from three hysterectomies were obtained within 3 hours from the operation. Following gross inspection, three aortic samples and nine cervical lesions were classified as normal and the rest as either samples of various degrees of atherosclerosis (fibrous, fatty plaque, aneuresmal thrombus, calcified plaque) or malignant lesion of the cervix and uterus. Simple algebraic algorithms, based on the relative intensity of two spectral regions (516–525 nm and 590–600 nm), implemented on the emission spectra were sufficient to discriminate between fibrous and aneuresmal tissue and normal aortic samples (Fig. 1). After treatment with Hypocrellin (10^-3 M in CH₂C1₂), the same semi-empirical algorithms were able to discriminate between normal and fatty-calcified samples, as well as normal and malignant cervical tissue (Fig. 2).

© 1994 IEEE