Total attenuation coefficients and scattering phase functions of tissues and phantom materials at 633 nm

Measurements have been made of the total attenuation coefficient sigma t and the scattering phase function, S(theta), of 632.8 nm of light for a number of animal model tissues, blood, and inert scattering and absorbing media. Polystyrene microspheres of known size and refractive index, for which sigma t and S(theta) can be calculated by Mie theory, were used to test the experimental methods. The purpose of the study was to define typical ranges for these optical properties of tissues, as a contribution to the development of experimental and theoretical methods of light dosimetry in tissue, particularly related to photodynamic therapy of solid tumors. The results demonstrate that, for the representative tissues studied, the total attenuation coefficients are of the order of 10-100 mm-1, and that the scattering is highly forward peaked, with average cosine of scatter in the range 0.6-0.97.