Evaluation of Diffuse Reflectance in Multi-layered Tissue for High Intensity Laser Therapy

Pain is one of the quite common symptoms in clinics and many treatment methods have been applied to relieve pain. Among the treatments, high-intensity light therapy for pain has been introduced, but this therapy has not been fully supported by confirmed efficacy due to the absence of quantitative assessments and treatment feedback data in real time. In this study, the evaluation of light distribution in tissue was performed with current high-intensity light sources quantitatively using light-tissue interaction simulations. The diffuse reflectance in tissue was generated using Monte Carlo simulation that traces photons as they undergo multiple scattering and absorption within each tissue layer (skin, fat, and muscle) and within multi-layered tissue. The results showed that the highest diffuse reflectance and the deepest penetration of tissue were achieved at lambda=830 nm when compared with other wavelengths like lambda=650 nm, 980 nm and 1064 nm.