Statistical basis for the determination of optical pathlength in tissue

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Abstract
Here, the authors show how to derive the mean and variance of the transilluminated signal obtained in models of light propagation in tissue, based both on a stochastic Monte Carlo method and on a deterministic diffusion approximation. The theoretical treatment of the Monte Carlo model applies only to integrated intensity measurements, whereas the diffusion approximation gives an estimator for the time-dependent case as well. The authors present results that show the accurate prediction of Monte Carlo statistics, and propose that the diffusion approximation is therefore a suitable mechanism for incorporating noise into modelling procedures.