Quantitative differentiation of normal and wound healed mice skin by terahertz time domain spectroscopy

The current study involves the exposure of mice skin to the Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) system to mark the quantitative difference in refractive index and absorption spectra in the range 0.5–1.5 THz of normal and wound-healed skin tissues. In addition, the absorption spectra obtained from the skin tissues are compared and corroborated with gold standard Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) as well as Van Gieson’s (VG) Stain and observe under a bright field microscope to establish structural and compositional differences. The refractive index of normal skin tissue is found to be ~ 1.2 and that of healed skin tissue is ~ 1.52 in 0.5–1.5 THz range. The absorption coefficient of normal and healed skin tissues at 1 THz is 1280 and 2349 (cm^− 1) respectively. This study based on quantitative differentiation of optical parameters, suggests THz-TDS as a potential candidate for the non-invasive detection of wound-healing skin tissues.