Snapshot Polarized Light Scattering Spectrometric Fiberscopy for Early Cancer Detection

Abstract

AbstractPolarized light scattering spectroscopy (PLSS) is a promising nondestructive method for early cancer detection through capturing single scattered light from the epithelium. A novel fiber‐based snapshot PLSS endoscopy capable of collecting single scattered light through a single optical path is introduced. In the endoscope, a simple combination of a fixed multiorder retarder followed by a fixed linear polarizer is proposed at the distal location of multimode fiber for encoding the scattered spectra for the first time. The encoded spectrum is recorded by a fiber spectrometer and subsequently decoded using a compressed sensing (CS) algorithm. The resulting Stokes spectrum S1 is used to iteratively invert the size of the epithelial nucleus for early cancer detection. As an alternative, the normalized spectrum S1 is directly weighted for early cancer identification, offering an innovative non‐iterative method for rapid diagnosis. A proof‐of‐concept prototype of the fiber‐based snapshot PLSS endoscope is built and its effectiveness is validated through experiments on both tissue physical models and ex vivo gastrointestinal samples.