Selecting Optimal Substrate Mounts in Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopic Imaging of Murine Radiation-Treated Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

We report a method of selecting optimal mounting substrates and detecting tissue thickness for performing Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) experiments in transmission geometry. Our aim in doing so was to select a substrate that could offer the highest detectable signal between experimental method to characterize the difference between Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT)-treated and untreated Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) murine tissue samples. Our experiments show that 50-μm-thick tissue samples mounted on cellulose acetate films offers the best contrast in the tissue impulse response of the two tissue samples. We attribute the difference to the presence of collagen deposits and DNA fragments in SBRT-treated tissues.