System Design, Algorithm Development, and Verification for Optoacoustic Molecular Imaging of Protease Expression in Breast Cancer

摘要

Optoacoustic tomography (OAT) is an emerging, hybrid technique that is non-invasive and uses non-ionizing radiation. No one has yet developed a molecular probe for early detection of proteases in breast cancer using OAT. Our group is developing a molecular probe and an optoacoustic imaging system to address this. During the first year of this project, we have implemented the code that simulates the ideal optoacoustic system. We have compared existing 2D algorithms in OAT with respect to contrast, resolution, noise and signal detectability. We also explored the effect of variable speed of sound and ultrasonic attenuation on image quality. We derived new techniques to address these physical effects that could cause image distortion and blurring.