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The most common type of cancer are carcinomas: cancers which originate from the epithelial tissue lining the outer surfaces of organs. To detect carcinomas at an early stage, techniques are required with small sampling volumes. Single Fiber Reflectance spectroscopy (SFR) is a promising technique to detect early-stage carcinomas since it has a measurement volume in the order of hundreds of microns. SFR uses a single fiber to emit and collect broadband light. The model from Kanick et al. to relate SFR reflectance to tissue optical properties provided accurate results for tissue with a modified Henyey Greenstein phase function only. However, in many tissues other types of phase functions have been measured. We have developed a new model to relate SFR reflectance to the scattering and absorption properties of tissue, which provides accurate results for a large range of tissue phase functions. SFR measurements fall into the sub-diffuse regime. We, therefore, describe the SFR reflectance as a diffuse plus a semi-ballistic component. An accurate description of the diffuse SFR signal requires double integration of spatially resolved reflectance over the fiber surface. We use approaches from Geometric Probability and have derived the first analytic solution for the diffuse contribution to SFR. For the semi-ballistic contribution to the SFR signal we introduce a new phase function dependent parameter, psb, to describe the semi-ballistic part of the SFR signal. We will use the model to derive optical properties from SFR measurements performed endoscopically in patients with Barrett’s esophagus. These patients are at an increased risk to develop esophageal adenocarcinoma and, therefore, undergo regular endoscopic surveillance. When detected at an early stage, endoscopic treatment is possible, thereby avoiding extensive surgery. Based on the concept of field cancerization, we investigated whether SFR could be used as a tool to identify which patients are developing esophageal adenocarcinoma.
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