Introduction to Clinical Diagnostic Optical Spectroscopy

Presented by: Dr. Irving Bigio
Boston University, The Photonics Center, Dept. of Biomedical Eng., Dept. of Electrical and Computer Eng., Dept. of Physics

Date: Monday, June 16, 2008
Time: 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. (Session 1)
Fees: None

Who should attend this course?
This course will be a 90 minute one day course. Anyone engaged in the development of diagnostic applications of optical spectroscopy will find this course useful. The course is aimed at business leaders, potential investors, and non-specialists in general who wish to acquire an understanding of diagnostic spectroscopy. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions during the course.

Course Description:
Biomedical optics (or Biophotonics) is a newly developing field, dealing with the application of optical science and technology to biomedical problems, including clinical applications. Optical spectroscopy mediated by fiber-optic probes can be used to perform non-invasive, or minimally-invasive, real-time assessment of tissue pathology in-situ. The most common approaches have been based on UV-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and elastic scattering spectroscopy. each responding to a different underlying biomarker for disease. An overview and comparison of different spectroscopic approaches will be presented. In determining true clinical utility and patient benefits of a new diagnostic technique, a variety of practical issues become important, including the overall cost to the health-care system, user friendliness and clinical practicality, likelihood of adoption, and the appropriate statistics for demonstration clinical value. A variety of these considerations will be addressed in the short-course.