Determination of Optical Absorption Coefficient of Thermally Coagulated Blood Using Photoacoustic Analysis

Determination of the optical properties of thermally coagulated blood is becoming more important as the use of laser based methods to diagnose burn wounds has increased [1–3]. Knowledge of all optical properties within an inhomogeneous tissue sample, such as a burn wound, in combination with response of that tissue to laser light, allows for the identification of a specific chromophore, such as thermally coagulated blood, within the whole tissue sample. This is important for burn wound diagnosis because the boundary between the necrotic tissue layer, containing thermally coagulated blood, must be distinguished from the underlying viable tissue layer, which contains whole, viable blood[4]. Although the optical properties of whole blood have been studied extensively[5], there is a lack of research devoted to the study of the optical properties of thermally coagulated blood.