Dear Colleagues,

Throughout human history light has played an important role in medicine. New optical technologies, many involving light emitting diodes, laser diodes, lasers, fibre optics or nanotechnologies, providing sensitive and compact electronic like devices, are revolutionising many fields. Applications of new optical technologies to medicine might be described as in an adolescent stage, where their power and potential can be recognised but are still developing rapidly, and much is yet to come. Such technologies, so far, have been used extensively for monitoring, diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic purposes. There are many new methods of optical monitoring of tissue and other anatomical parts that offer the potential to find widespread use in medicine e.g. spectrophotometry, OCT, photo-acoustic imaging, pulse oximetry, NIRS, etc. The establishment of such techniques often depends on the development of new light sources, detectors, signal and image processing algorithms.

This special issue invites submissions in this area, particularly those that are application-focused. Examples of application areas include real-time (non-invasive or invasive) physiological and biochemical monitoring using optical techniques, spectral analysis, and imaging techniques, including both, point-based or full-field. Mathematical modelling of optical propagation in tissue, as well as signal-processing techniques developed or adapted specifically for extraction of biomedical information arising from optical techniques also lie within the scope of this special issue.

• tissue optics
• photoplethysmography
• pulse oximetry
• NIRS
• photometry
• spectrophotometry
• perfusion
• chromophore concentration
• optical monitoring
• OCT