<title>Detection and characterization of chemical-induced abnormal tissue and rat tumors at different stages using fluorescence spectroscopy</title>

Abstract

Fluorescence spectroscopy of diseased tissues, including chemical-induced rat liver, kidney and testis lesions, as well as murine mammary tumor, was studied. The rat liver, kidney and testis tissues were excited by radiation of 350 and 366 nm, which appeared to provide the optimal differentiation between normal and lesion tissues; the tumor tissues were excited by both 350 nm and 775 nm wavelengths. In comparison with normal liver tissue, at (lambda) ex equals 366 nm, the fluorescent spectrum of liver lesion showed a clear red shift around the emission peak of 470 nm, the major native fluorescent peak of organized tissue. When excited by 350 nm wavelength, all the chemically induced lesion tissues (liver, kidney and testis) appeared to cause a significant reduction of emission intensity at the 470 nm peak. While the 775 nm excitation did not reveal any significant difference among tumor, muscle and skin tissues, the 350 nm excitation did provide some interesting features among the tumor tissues at different stages. Compared with muscle tissue, the viable tumor showed an overall reduction of emission intensity around 470 nm. In addition, the viable tumor tissue showed a secondary emission peak at 390 nm with necrotic tumor tissue having a reduced intensity. The histology of both viable and necrotic tumor tissue was examined and appeared to correlate with the results of the fluorescent spectroscopy observation.