Time-resolved spectral wing emission kinetics and optical imaging of human cancerous and normal prostate tissues

Time-resolved polarization-dependent kinetics of near infrared (NIR) spectral wing (SW) emission from human cancerous and normal prostate tissues was investigated. The differences between the temporal profiles, intensities and polarization properties of SW emission from cancerous and normal prostate tissues were observed. The intensity of SW emission from cancerous prostate tissue at peak position was found ∼2 times stronger than the normal prostate tissue indicating changes of fluorophores contained in the cancerous tissue compared with normal tissue. The decay time of anisotropy of SW emission from cancerous tissue was found ∼1.4 times longer than that of normal tissue reflecting changes of the micro-environment of fluorophores in the cancerous tissue as compared with the normal tissue. The stronger intensity of SW emission from cancerous tissue was used to image and identify cancerous areas surrounded by normal tissue.