Differentiation Of Benign And Malignant Thyroid Tissue Using Elastic Light Scattering And Henyey-Greenstein Phase Function: An Invetro Study

Optical biopsy techniques based on elastic light scattering (ELS) offer rapid, non‑invasive tissue characterization. Our previous work successfully combined ELS with the Henyey‑Greenstein (HG) phase function to differentiate benign from malignant oral tissues and normal from scleroderma‑affected skin. This pilot study investigated whether the same method can distinguish benign from malignant thyroid tissue. Four malignant and four benign thyroid samples (two measurement spots per sample; total n=۸ per group) were examined using a custom forward‑scattering optical setup. Scattering intensity‑versus‑angle profiles were fitted to the HG phase function to extract the anisotropy coefficient (g) and angular width (W at ۱/e of maximum). The Mann‑Whitney U test and bootstrap resampling (۵۰۰۰ iterations) were used for statistical inference. The anisotropy coefficient g ranged from ۰.۹۶۰ to ۰.۹۶۵ for malignant samples and from ۰.۹۵۲ to ۰.۹۶۵ for benign samples. Notably, two benign samples exhibited g values (۰.۹۶۶۹ and ۰.۹۶۳۹) and narrow widths (۱.۷۰°–۱.۹۰°) that completely overlapped with the malignant group. The Mann‑Whitney test yielded p = ۰.۴۸, and the ۹۵% bootstrap confidence intervals for mean g were [۰.۹۶۰, ۰.۹۶۵] for malignant and [۰.۹۵۳, ۰.۹۶۵] for benign, showing substantial overlap. Unlike our previous success in oral and skin tissues, the ELS‑HG method alone did not achieve statistically significant differentiation between benign and malignant thyroid samples in this pilot study. The complex follicular structure and heterogeneous colloid content of thyroid tissue likely produce scattering patterns that mask malignancy‑specific changes. These findings highlight the need for larger studies, multimodal optical approaches, or more sophisticated scattering models when targeting thyroid tissue.

کلیدواژه ها:

Elastic light scattering ، Henyey‑Greenstein phase function ، Anisotropy coefficient ، Thyroid cancer ، Optical diagnosis