PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | February 23, 2009
Proc. SPIE. 7169, Advanced Biomedical and Clinical Diagnostic Systems VII
KEYWORDS: Target detection, Optical imaging, 3D acquisition, Tissues, Imaging systems, Luminescence, Tomography, Tissue optics, In vitro testing, 3D image processing
Several hand-held based optical imaging devices have been developed towards breast imaging, which are portable,
patient-comfortable, and use non-ionizing radiation. The devices developed to date are limited in that they have flat
probe faces and are incapable of real-time coregistration (as needed for 3-D tomographic imaging). A hand-held based
optical imager has been developed in our lab, which has unique features of (i) simultaneous over sequential source
illumination, which enables rapid data acquisition, (ii) a flexible probe face, which enables it to contour to any tissue
curvature, and (iii) self coregistration facilities towards 3-D tomographic imaging. Real-time coregistration is
demonstrated using the imager via fluorescence-enhanced studies in the continuous-wave mode, performed on slab
phantoms (filled with 1% Liposyn solution) and in vitro samples (chicken breast). Additionally, preliminary studies
were conducted using curved phantoms. In all cases, a 0.45-cc target filled with 1 μM Indocyanine green was used to
represent a tumor. Real-time 2-D surface images of the phantom were obtained via multiple scans at different target
depths. Preliminary surface imaging studies demonstrated that the summation of multiple scans distinctly differentiated
the target from artifacts (up to 3 cm deep), which was not possible from individual scans.
