In vivo Terahertz Sensing of Skin Cancer Patients

The first in vivo study of skin cancer patients using a handheld terahertz (THz) scanner is conducted in a clinical environment. By devising a patient- normalized response function, it has been able to obtain clear difference between the THz measurements of healthy and cancerous skin. However, due to the variety of lesions and skin locations measured, the contrast is not consistent between patients and more work is needed to understand the contrast mechanism. The transient behavior of the THz response is also isolated during a measurement, showing that the surface of the skin compresses during the in vivo measurement. Understanding this response has enabled the development of the patient-invariant parameter that is formulated in this work and may potentially serve to simplify measurement protocols in future studies.