Calculation of transfer functions of multilayer biotissues in the problems of correction of their fluorescence spectra

A method for rapid calculation of a flux of stimulated fluorescence of a multilayer optically dense medium with inhomogeneous distribution of the fluorophore has been developed. The light field in the medium at the excitation wavelength of fluorescence is represented by a superposition of incident collimated, incident diffuse, and reflected diffuse fluxes. A two-stream approximation is used to describe the light field in the medium at the wavelength of emission of the fluorescence. Fluxes in adjacent elementary layers of the medium and on its surface are connected by simple matrix operators that are obtained using a combination of engineering approaches of radiation-transfer theory and single-scattering approximation. The calculations of fluorescence fluxes of a four-layer biotissue that are excited and recorded at 400–800 nm are compared with their Monte Carlo simulation with a discrepancy of 1%. The effect of the propagation medium on the fluorescence spectra of 5-ALA-induced protoporphyrin IX that are recorded from human skin was studied, and a technique for their correction that is based on measurements and quantitative analysis of the diffuse reflectance spectrum of skin was proposed.