Backscattered stokes vectors of scattering media: Anisotropy factor and reduced scattering coefficient estimation

Optical characterization of biological tissues is of real interest to improve medical diagnosis and in particular in the detection of precancerous tissues. The reduced scattering coefficient mu(s)' and the absorption coefficient It. are the most commonly retrieved coefficients. Some methods also allow to obtain the anisotropy factor g, but only few of them are noninvasive. We propose a new noninvasive method allowing the estimation of the anisotropy factor and the reduced scattering coefficient with polarized incident light. This method is based on the image analysis of the Q-element of Stokes vector backscattered from the turbid medium. These Q-element images show specific patterns depending on g, and A's is determined by the size of the patterns. Therefore, the use of Fourier descriptors (FD) on simulated and experimental data to discriminate the specific geometrical features of the Q-element enables the determination of the anisotropy factor and the scattering coefficient. (c) 2008 Publie par Elsevier Masson SAS.