Autofluorescence spectroscopy of tissues from human oral cavity for discriminating malignant from normal

Reports the results of an in-vitro study on autofluorescence from oral tissues. With 337 nm excitation the normal tissue was significantly more fluorescent than the cancerous tissue with the ratio of the mean value for spectrally integrated fluorescence intensity Sigma /sub lambda /I/sub F/( lambda 360 nm95% in this study involving 47 patients with cancer of oral cavity. No significant difference in the fluorescence yield between cancerous and normal oral tissues was observed at 300 and 460 nm excitation. Analysis of the 300, 337 and 460 nm excited emission spectra and the excitation spectra corresponding to the emission peaks of the prominent fluorophores suggests that collagen/NADH concentration is higher in normal tissue sites in comparison with cancerous tissue sites. This appears to be major reason responsible for the observed differences in the fluorescence yield between the two tissue types at different excitation wavelengths