Purdue University researchers are developing a novel biomedical imaging system that combines optical and ultrasound technology to enhance diagnosis of life-threatening diseases.
Users can easily plan the fiber optic bundles to tune the depth using a motorised photoacoustic holder. In this, light is focused, improving the light penetration depth and signal-to-noise ratio of the images.
Photoacoustic tomography is a noninvasive technique that works by converting absorbed optical energy into an acoustic signal.
Pulsed light is sent into body tissue, creating a small increase in temperature that causes the tissue to expand and create an acoustic response that can be detected by an ultrasound transducer. The ultrasound data is used to visualise the tissue.
Photoacoustic tomography provides information about where blood and lipid are located, along with other essential information. It can also be used to detect or monitor a myriad of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Real-time compositional information of body tissue can be found without the need for contrast agents and with better depth penetration compared with conventional optical techniques.
The major use of photoacoustic tomography is the mapping of lipid deposition within an arterial wall that can cause other health problems, measuring cardiac tissue damage and tumor biopsies.
Using photoacoustic tomography for intraoperative tumor biopsies could help surgeons make sure they remove all cancer from a patient.
The tomography helps to improve the penetration depth and signal-to-noise ratio past optical absorbers.
