This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Optical Methods in Sensing and Imaging for Medical and Biological Applications" that was published in Sensors

The recent advances in optical sources and detectors have opened up new opportunities for sensing and imaging techniques which can be successfully used in biomedical and healthcare applications. This book, entitled 'Optical Methods in Sensing and Imaging for Medical and Biological Applications', focuses on various aspects of the research and development related to these areas. The book will be a valuable source of information presenting the recent advances in optical methods and novel techniques, as well as their applications in the fields of biomedicine and healthcare, to anyone interested in this subject.

This third edition of the biomedical optics classic Tissue Optics covers the continued intensive growth in tissue optics—in particular, the field of tissue diagnostics and imaging—that has occurred since 2007. As in the first two editions, Part I describes fundamentals and basic research, and Part II presents instrumentation and medical applications. However, for the reader’s convenience, this third edition has been reorganized into 14 chapters instead of 9. The chapters covering optical coherence tomography, digital holography and interferometry, controlling optical properties of tissues, nonlinear spectroscopy, and imaging have all been substantially updated. The book is intended for researchers, teachers, and graduate and undergraduate students specializing in the physics of living systems, biomedical optics and biophotonics, laser biophysics, and applications of lasers in biomedicine. It can also be used as a textbook for courses in medical physics, medical engineering, and medical biology.

Based on physical science principles, Quantitative Biomedical Optics covers theory, instrumentation, methods and applications, with practical exercises and problem sets.

Optical Polarization in Biomedical Applications introduces key developments in optical polarization methods for quantitative studies of tissues, while presenting the theory of polarization transfer in a random medium as a basis for the quantitative description of polarized light interaction with tissues. This theory uses the modified transfer equation for Stokes parameters and predicts the polarization structure of multiple scattered optical fields. The backscattering polarization matrices (Jones matrix and Mueller matrix) important for noninvasive medical diagnostic are introduced. The text also describes a number of diagnostic techniques such as CW polarization imaging and spectroscopy, polarization microscopy and cytometry. As a new tool for medical diagnosis, optical coherent polarization tomography is analyzed. The monograph also covers a range of biomedical applications, among them cataract and glaucoma diagnostics, glucose sensing, and the detection of bacteria.

Designing an efficient imaging system for biomedical optics requires a solid understanding of the special requirements of the optical systems for biomedical imaging and the optical components used in the systems. However, a lack of reference books on optical design (imaging and illumination) for biomedical imaging has led to some inefficient systems. This book fills the gap between biomedical optics and optical design by addressing the fundamentals of biomedical optics and optical engineering, and biomedical imaging systems. The first half provides a brief introduction to biomedical optics and then covers the fundamentals of optics, optical components, light sources, detectors, optical imaging system design, and illumination system design. This also includes important issues related to biomedical imaging, such as autofluorescence from optical materials. The second half of the text covers various biomedical imaging techniques and their optical systems, along with design examples.

This book is a wide-ranging guide to advanced imaging techniques and related methods with important applications in translational research or convergence science as progress is made toward a new era in integrative healthcare. Conventional and advanced microscopic imaging techniques, including both non-fluorescent (i.e., label-free) and fluorescent methods, have to date provided researchers with specific and quantitative information about molecules, cells, and tissues. Now, however, the different imaging techniques can be correlated with each other and multimodal methods developed to simultaneously obtain diverse and complementary information. In addition, the latest advanced imaging techniques can be integrated with non-imaging techniques such as mass spectroscopic methods, genome editing, organic/inorganic probe synthesis, nanomedicine, and drug discovery. The book will be of high value for researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences or convergence science who need to use these multidisciplinary and integrated techniques or are involved in developing new analytical methods focused on convergence science.