Abstract

The primary focus of this experiment was to study of optical imaging of malignant and normal tissues (skin and breast) and to observe the spectral properties of Methylene Blue and its potential use as a cancer biomarker in the diagnosis of breast cancer tissues. We present the optical imaging of skin tissues by different techniques, including reflectance, fluorescence and polarization imaging for early detection of skin cancer. We collected the reflectance images of skin between 410 nm and 630 nm. We confirmed that a high concentration of MB occurs in cancer cells due to its increased accumulation in mitochondria of cancer cells. The breast tissues stained with MB were imaged with a high-resolution microscope. Imaging of breast cancer shows highly significant differences between cancer and normal cells using MB concentrations as low as 0.05 and 0.01 mg/ml. We also observed the fluorescence polarization and absorption and fluorescence emission spectrum of MB dissolved in solutions of saline and glycerol by using different solutions of methylene blue dye.