Validation of diffuse optical tomography using a bi-functional optical-MRI contrast agent and a hybrid MRI-DOT system

摘要

Since diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a low spatial resolution modality, it is desirable to validate its quantitative accuracy with another well-established imaging modality, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). fn this work, we have used a polymer based bi-functional MRl-optical contrast agent (Gd-DTPA-polylysine-IR800) in collaboration with GE Global Research. This multi-modality contrast agent provided not only co-localization but also the same kinetics, to cross-validate two imaging modalities. Bi-functional agents are injected to the rats and pharmacokinetics at the bladder are recovered using both optical and MR imaging. DOT results are validated using MRI results as "gold standard".