In vivo spectroscopy of healthy skin and pathology in terahertz frequency range

Abstract

Biomedical applications of terahertz (THz) technology and, in particular, THz pulsed spectroscopy have attracted considerable interest in the scientific community. A lot of papers have been dedicated to studying the ability for human disease diagnosis, including the diagnosis of human skin cancers. In this paper we have studied the THz material parameters and THz dielectric properties of human skin and pathology in vivo, and THz pulsed spectroscopy has been utilized for this purpose. We have found a contrast between material parameters of basal cell carcinoma and healthy skin, and we have also compared the THz material parameters of dysplastic and non-dysplastic pigmentary nevi in order to study the ability for early melanoma diagnosis. Significant differences between the THz material parameters of healthy skin and pathology have been detected, thus, THz pulsed spectroscopy promises to be become an effective tool for non-invasive diagnosis of skin neoplasms.