This pilot study explores the potential of noninvasive diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) for monitoring early relative blood flow , tissue oxygen saturation , and total hemoglobin concentration responses to chemo-radiation therapy in patients with head and neck tumors. , , and in superficial neck tumor nodes of eight patients are measured before and during the chemo-radiation therapy period. The weekly , , and kinetics exhibit different patterns for different individuals, including significant early blood flow changes during the first two weeks. Averaged blood flow increases in the first week and decreases in the second week. Averaged increases from baseline value to at the end of the second week, and averaged exhibits a continuous decrease from pretreatment value of to at the end of the second week and to at the end of the fourth week of therapy. These preliminary results suggest daily diffuse-optics-based therapy monitoring is feasible during the first two weeks and may have clinical promise.
