Abstract
.Diffuse optical tomography has demonstrated significant potential for clinical utility in the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer, and its use in combination with other structural imaging modalities improves lesion localization and the quantification of functional tissue properties. Here, we introduce a hybrid diffuse optical imaging system that operates concurrently with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the imaging suite, utilizing commercially available MR surface coils. The instrument acquires both continuous-wave and time-domain diffuse optical data in the parallel-plate geometry, permitting both absolute assignment of tissue optical properties and three-dimensional tomography; moreover, the instrument is designed to incorporate diffuse correlation spectroscopic measurements for probing tissue blood flow. The instrument is described in detail here. Image reconstructions of a tissue phantom are presented as an initial indicator of the system’s ability to accurately reconstruct optical properties and the concrete benefits of the spatial constraints provided by concurrent MRI. Last, we briefly discuss how various data combinations that the instrument could facilitate, including tissue perfusion, can enable more comprehensive assessment of lesion physiology.
Highlights
The ability of Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) to probe functional tissue parameters noninvasively is attractive for breast cancer imaging,[6] but the technique faces challenges as well
The additional structural information can constrain the DOT reconstruction algorithm and thereby improve assignment of functional tissue properties based on optical spectroscopy
We introduce a hybrid diffuse optical imaging system that operates concurrently with state-of-the-art clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) surface coils in the imaging suite
Summary
Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a near-infrared optical imaging technique that provides three-dimensional (3-D) maps of tissue optical and physiological properties in human tissue.[1,2,3,4,5] The ability of DOT to probe functional tissue parameters noninvasively is attractive for breast cancer imaging,[6] but the technique faces challenges as well. Concurrent imaging is valuable because the compressibility of breast tissue makes coregistration with nonconcurrent data difficult, requiring sophisticated deformation algorithms and assumptions.[25] To this end, we introduce a hybrid diffuse optical imaging system that operates concurrently with state-of-the-art clinical MRI surface coils in the imaging suite. The instrument can incorporate diffuse correlation spectroscopic measurements (20 source and 20 detector positions) that utilize temporal fluctuations of multiply scattered light intensity to probe tissue blood flow.[4,26,27] In total, the design offers arguably the most versatile and spatially dense optical dataset reported to date for joint optical-MR imaging systems At this stage, the joint DOT-MRI instrument has been deployed in the clinic at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. We will briefly discuss how various data combinations that the instrument could facilitate, including tissue perfusion measured by DCS28–33 or DCE-MRI,[34,35,36] can enable more comprehensive assessment of lesion physiology and biomarkers
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