In the neurosurgery of brain tumor, patients' life after surgery crucially depends on completeness of malignant glioma resection. It is, therefore, quite necessary to construct real-time monitoring system of brain tumor. In this study, proposed is the novel optical measurement method of brain tumor demarcation. It has been well known that some phosphorescence luminophor dyes used in PDT can emit fluorescence. In addition, it has been recently reported that auto-fluorescence can be observed even in brain white matter tissue; moreover its intensity locally decreases in tumor region. Using phosphorescence and auto-fluorescence images, Dual Emission Laser-Induced Fluorescence technique was experimentally applied to the brain tumor detection. Consequently, it was confirmed that the contrast between tumor and normal region could be enhanced. Undesirable fluorescence variation, which was dependent on illumination intensity distribution and brain surface shape, could be reduced. The present method was clarified to be effective to brain tumor monitoring and quantitative delimitation.
