Novel Biomedical Imaging System Combines Optical, Ultrasound Technology

Medical Design Briefs INSIDER

A novel biomedical imaging system combines optical and ultrasound technology to improve diagnosis of life-threatening diseases. (Credit: Purdue University)

Researchers are developing a novel biomedical imaging system that combines optical and ultrasound technology to improve diagnosis of life-threatening diseases. The system provides real-time compositional information of body tissue without the need for contrast agents and with better depth penetration compared with conventional optical techniques. The ultimate goal is to enhance the clinical care of patients.

Photoacoustic tomography is a noninvasive technique that works by converting absorbed optical energy into 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 visualize the tissue.

Photoacoustic tomography can be used to detect or monitor a myriad of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Those are diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists as among the most common, costly, and preventable of all health problems. Heart disease and cancer each account for one in every four deaths a year in the United States, and more than 30 million Americans, or more than 9 percent of the population, have diabetes. The cost of those three diseases a year in the United States is more than $718 billion a year, according to the CDC.

Among other potential uses for 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 the cancer from a patient.

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