A textbook for a new field based on old concepts

Biomedical optics is a field that is both new and ancient. From the vantage point of the natural sciences and engineering, this is a newly developing interdisciplinary field, dealing with the application of optical science and technology to biological and biomedical problems, including clinical applications. On the other hand, the field has been around for thousands of years in a less quantitative way. Physicians’ eyes have served as optical spectrographs and sensors, with the brain serving as a database repository and providing the computational power (of a massively parallel computer) for pattern recognition. For example, physicians have known for a long time that a Caucasian patient with yellowing of the skin (or of the sclera of the eye) is likely to be suffering from liver disease. If the patient is flushed red, he/she might be running a fever, and if a local tissue area appears flushed and red, an inflammation is indicated; and the bluish appearance of a patient's lips and nail beds might be indicative of hypoxia. Now that the modern approach has become more quantitative and is developing new technologies, however, the field is growing and beginning to have a major impact on bioscience and healthcare. The emerging field combines the observational with the mathematical and computational, benefits from recent advances in optical technologies, and is coupled with a more rigorous physical-science approach that seeks to understand the basic underlying principles.

This textbook provides a broad survey of the field and covers the basics of a quantitative approach to the subtopics, taking advantage of the powerful tools offered by mathematics, physics and engineering. This quantitative approach and the didactic style, coupled with the description of representative applications and problem sets that accompany each chapter, are designed to serve the needs of students and professionals in engineering and the physical sciences. Students of the biological sciences will also find the text useful, especially if they have a good mathematical background. The basic material about general concepts and methods that are directly relevant to biomedical optics, including some topics of medical statistics, are described at an introductory level, whereas selected topics are covered in greater depth and treated at a more advanced level. Consequently, by proper selection of the material, this textbook can be used for upper-level undergraduate courses, as well as more advanced graduate-level courses on biomedical optics.