Mueller matrix based characterization of Cervical tissue sections: A quantitative comparison of Polar and Differential decomposition methods

Detection of cervical intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) at the early stage enables prevention of cervical cancer, which is one of the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. Recently there is a great interest to use the optical polarimetry as a non-invasive diagnosis tool to characterize the cervical tissues. In this context, it is crucial to validate the performance of various Mueller matrix decomposition techniques, that are utilized to extract the intrinsic polarization properties of complex turbid media, such as biological tissues. The aim of the work is to quantitatively compare the performance of polar and differential MM decomposition methods for probing the polarization properties in various complex optical media. Complete polarization responses of the cervical tissue sections, and other media are recorded by preparing a home-built Mueller matrix imaging set up with a spatial resolution of 400 nm. The Mueller matrices are then processed with the polar and differential decomposition methods to separate, and quantify the individual polarization parameters. ronounced differences in the extracted polarization properties are observed for different CIN grades with both the decomposition methods. Our results indicate that the differential decomposition of MM have certain advantages over the polar decomposition method to extract the intrinsic polarization properties of a complex tissue medium. The quantified polarization parameters obtained through the decomposition methods can be used as useful metrics to distinguish between the different grades of CIN, and to describe the healing efficiency of a self-healing organic crystal. Thus the Mueller matrix polarimetry shows great potential as an label-free, non-invasive diagnostic and imaging tool with potential applications in biomedical clinical research, and in various other disciplines.