Hand-held Probe Based Optical Imaging System towards Breast Cancer Diagnosis

摘要

Near-infrared (NIR) optical imaging is an emerging noninvasive modality for breast cancer diagnosis. However, the currently available optical imaging systems towards tomography studies are limited either by instrument portability, patient comfort, or flexibility to image any given tissue volume. Herein, a hand-held based optical imaging system is developed such that it can possibly overcome some of the above limitations. The unique features of the hand-held optical probe are: (ⅰ) to perform simultaneous multiple point illumination and detection, thus decreasing the total imaging time and improving the overall signal strength; (ⅱ) to adapt to the contour of tissue surface, thus decreasing the leakage of excitation and emission signal at contact surface; and (ⅲ) to obtain trans-illumination measurements apart from reflectance measurements, thus improving the depth information. The increased detected signal strength as well as total interrogated tissue volume is demonstrated by simulation studies (i.e. forward model) over a 5×10×10 cc slab phantom. The appropriate number and layout of the source and detection points on the probe head is determined and the hand-held optical probe is developed. A frequency-domain ICCD (intensified charge coupled device) detection system, which allows simultaneous multiple points detection, is developed and coupled to the hand-held probe in order to perform fluorescence-enhanced optical imaging of tissue phantoms. In the future, imaging of homogenous liquid phantoms will be used for the assessment of this hand-held system, followed by extensive imaging studies on different phantoms types under various experimental conditions.