The diffusion approximation is widely invoked to model the propagation of light in turbid media. When absorption is not weak in comparison with scattering, there is currently a controversy as to if, and how, the diffusion coefficient depends on absorption. Here it is shown that better agreement with random walk simulation is obtained if the photon-diffusion coefficient is taken as D=c/(3µ_s^′+µ_a) . One can reconcile this result with recent work advocating D=c/3µ_s^′ by noting that the diffusion equation must be correspondingly changed to a telegrapher’s equation.

© 1998 Optical Society of America

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