The parathyroid glands – four small organs the size of grains of rice located at the back of the throat – glow with a natural fluorescence in the near infrared region of the spectrum.This unique fluorescent signature was discovered by a team of biomedical engineers and endocrine surgeons at Vanderbilt University, who have used it as the basis of a simple and reliable optical detector that can positively identify the parathyroid glands during endocrine surgery.
