Significance: Management of skin cancer worldwide is often a challenge of scale, in that the number of potential cases presented outweighs the resources available to detect and treat skin cancer.

Aim: This project aims to develop a polarimetry probe to create an accessible skin cancer detection tool.

Approach: An optical probe was developed to perform bulk tissue Stokes polarimetry, a technique in which a laser of known polarization illuminates a target, and the altered polarization state of the backscattered light is measured. Typically, measuring a polarization state requires four sequential measurements with different orientations of polarization filters; however, this probe contains four spatially separated detectors to take four measurements in one shot. The probe was designed to perform at a lower cost and higher speed than conventional polarimetry methods. The probe uses photodiodes and linear and circular film polarizing filters as detectors, and a low-coherence laser diode as its illumination source. The probe design takes advantage of the statistical uniformity of the polarization speckle field formed at the detection area.

Results: Tests of each probe component, and the complete system put together, were performed to evaluate error and confirm the probe’s performance despite its low-cost components. This probe’s potential is demonstrated in a pilot clinical study on 71 skin lesions. The degree of polarization was found to be a factor by which malignant melanoma could be separated from other types of skin lesions.