In this work, we introduce an analytical method to solve the diffusion equation in a cylindrical geometry. This method is based on an integral approach to derive the Green's function for specific boundary conditions. Using our approach, we obtain comprehensive analytical solutions with the Robin boundary condition for diffuse optical imaging in both two and three dimensions. The solutions are expressed in terms of the optical properties of tissue and the amplitude and position of the light source. Our method not only works well inside the tissue but provides very accurate results near the tissue boundaries as well. The results obtained by our method are first compared with those obtained by a conventional analytical method then validated using numerical simulations. Our new analytical method allows not only implementation of any boundary condition for a specific problem but also fast simulation of light propagation making it very suitable for iterative image reconstruction algorithms.