Hemispherical Stokes polarimeter for early cancer diagnosis

Optimal treatment of skin cancer before it reaches metastasis depends critically on early diagnosis of the melanoma. Valuable information for this diagnosis can be obtained from the analysis of skin roughness. This information can aid in determining the necessity for skin removal. For this purpose, we developed a hemispherical imaging Stokes polarimeter designed to monitor skin cancer based on a roughness assessment of the epidermis. Our setup is composed of 16 out-of-plane polarized light illuminations tubes that contain a three color LED and a vertical polarizer, a Stokes polarimeter that contains 2 liquid crystal retarders, a reference vertical polarizer and a fast acquisition camera. The Stokes polarimeter was calibrated using a set of well-known input polarization states. Each illumination polarizer was positioned using a roughness gold standard and a facet model describing the principal angle of polarization of the analyzed light as a function of the angle of incidence. A set of phantoms mimicking the optical properties of skin at 633 nm as well as skin roughness was built using wax as the bulk material, titanium dioxide as the scatterer and a black dye as the absorber. Images of these phantoms are presented and they are analyzed using a facet model.