Estimation of dehydration of skin by refractometric method using optical clearing agents

Abstract

Optical methods with highly sensitive to water content are important for the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic methods in medicine. The paper presents a quantitative assessment of the dehydration of skin when using optical clearing agents (glycerol and glucose) by the method of multi-wavelength refractometry for the visible and NIR spectral regions. The resulting decrease in the refractive index of the optical clearing solution made it possible to estimate the volume of the fluid extracted from the tissue. The possibility of using the method when conducting in vivomeasurements is shown. An assessment was made of the degree of dehydration of rat skin in areas with a subcutaneous tumor neoplasm, which was three times less than for control (healthy) skin areas.

Keywords

• multi-wavelength refractometry
• skin
• refractive index
• dehydration
• optical clearing
• glycerol
• glucose