Design, Calibration, and Testing of an Automated Near-Infrared Liquid-Crystal Polarimetric Imaging System for Discrimination of Lung Cancer Cells

A newly developed tissue diagnostic method, based on label-free near-infrared (NIR) polarimetric reflectance imaging for the classification of histopathological samples of lung cancer cells, is presented. The design, calibration, and testing of an automated NIR polarimetric imaging system, with emphasis on lung cancer detection, are put forward in detail. The described electro-optical imaging polarimeter system exhibits high degree of accuracy and repeatability. The outcome of this paper indicates that the operational design principles of the NIR polarimetric system may be proved extremely useful in discrimination of label-free normal and lung cancer cell samples as well as differentiation of different lung cancer cells and stages in vitro.