Performance Evaluation of a Priori Information on Reconstruction of Fluorescence Molecular Tomography

摘要

Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) plays an important role in small animal imaging. However, due to the diffusive nature of photon propagation in biological tissues, FMT suffers from a low spatial resolution, which limits its capability of resolving the distribution of fluorescent biomarkers. In this paper, we investigate the effect of functional and structural information on the accuracy of FMT reconstruction by a hybrid FMT and X-ray computed tomography imaging system. The results from numerical simulation and phantom experiments suggest that the fluorescence targets embedded in heterogeneous medium can be localized when structural information is utilized to constrain the reconstruction process. In addition, both the functional and structural information are essential for the recovery of fluorophore concentration.