Polarized Light-Based Cancer Cell Detection Techniques: A Review

Cancer is becoming raging phenomenon in clinical and pharmaceutical studies worldwide. It can be diagnosed by several step, including physical examination, blood or serum tests, and medical screening and imaging. Screening and imaging used to only be recommended if clear symptoms were observed, and positive results obtained from a blood test analysis were only significant if there was a high level of cancer markers observed. Optical biosensors are currently being developed that may be ideal for sensitive, selective and label free detection but burdensome and sophisticated. Recent studies of interest rely more on the application of nanomaterial (for indirect biochemical assays) than direct testing for in situ discrimination of the morphology of normal and cancerous cells. This review will be devoted to a description of the most recent developments of polarized light-based cancer cell/biomarker detection devices. These devices mostly operate based on a degree of polarization (DOP) and angle of polarization (AOP) of light parameters in separate devices. The main aim of this review is to provide an in-depth insight into the future use of device that measures the AOP in a single integrated device for cancer cell/tissue detection. © 2001-2012 IEEE