Fractal anisotropy in tissue refractive index fluctuations: potential role in precancer detection

Differential interference contrast images (DIC) are the direct representation of the refractive index fluctuations of human cervical tissues. These refractive index fluctuations are known to follow self-similar behaviour and in general are multifractal in nature. In this present study, multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) on refractive index fluctuations from DIC images has been performed by unfolding the tissue-images horizontally and vertically. Our analysis clearly shows that refractive index fluctuations of human cervical tissues are anisotropic-fractal in nature and anisotropy reduced as cancer progress.