Abstract

Cylindrical diffusers are widely used for interstitial laser photocoagulation and photodynamic therapy. Despite this, there exists a lack of guidelines aimed at standardizing the emission characteristics of such light diffusers. Such guidelines are needed in order to procure better treatment planning and treatment reliability. Furthermore, the theoretical impact of deviations from expected emission profiles are underappreciated. Here we measure the longitudinal, polar and azimuthal distributions for real fibers, simulate the resulting energy deposition distributions and compare with the energy distribution arising from an ideal top hat cylindrical diffuser. Preliminary results for a real fiber and its corresponding simulation are shown. This analysis is carried out for geometries simulating interstitial and intraluminal diffuser placement in tissues with different optical properties.

© 2005 Optical Society of America