Development of a stable and reproducible tissue-equivalent phantom for use in infrared spectroscopy and imaging

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Abstract
Much of the experimental work reported on the applications of near infrared spectroscopy and imaging for therapeutic purposes has been performed on multifarious tissue simulating materials, which often have unreproducible optical properties. To facilitate the quantitative testing of spectroscopy equipment, stable, reproducible phantoms which replicate the optical properties of tissue are needed. This paper describes one such phantom. The base material is a clear, non polymerized liquid polyester resin, which forms a solid on addition of a catalyst. The polyester has a low intrinsic absorption coefficient for infrared light and is nonscattering. Before the resin is set, measured quantities of scattering particle suspensions and absorbing dyes can be added. The scattering phase function of these particles has been measured, and the mean cosine of the scattering angle, g, calculated. Knowing this, by varying the concentration of scattering particles a range of materials with known transport scattering coefficients can be produced. By varying the concentration and mix of dyes, the absorption coefficient of the resin can be easily controlled. The resin can be easily machined or cast into arbitrary shapes, with regions of differing optical properties. Once set, the polyester is stable, in terms of both physical and optical properties.

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