Using multispectral photoacoustic tomography for imaging scleroderma in the hand

摘要

Scleroderma (SD) is a rare autoimmune disease, which is divided into two categories:the localized SD and systemic SD. The localized SD mainly causes skin thickening of the fingers,whereas the systemic SD can further affect the blood vessels and internal organs. In this pilotstudy, the multispectral photoacoustic elastic tomography (PAET) imaging technique was usedto recover quantitative physiological and elastic parameters of biological tissues for the diagnosisof SD. Three healthy subjects and three scleroderma patients were recruited and clinicallyexamined by a rheumatologist, and then their hand /fingers were scanned by the both thecommercial MRI and our home-made photoacoustic imaging system. Physiological parametersincluding oxygen saturation (S_TO_2), deoxy-hemoglobin (Hb) and oxy-hemoglobin (HbO_2)concentrations and mechanical properties such as bulk modulus images were reconstructed byusing the developed PAET reconstruction method. Our imaging results demonstrated that thephysiological and elastic parameters exhibit striking differences between the SD and healthyfingers, indicating that these indicators can serve as molecular signatures for the early detectionof SD. These quantitative physiological properties and bulk modulus may also pave a new pathfor improved understanding the pathological mechanism of SD.