Abstract
Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is being actively investigated as a non-invasive and non-radioactive imaging technique for sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy. By taking advantage of optical and ultrasound imaging, PAI probes SLNs non-invasively with methylene blue (MB) in both live animals and breast cancer patients. However, these PAI systems have limitations for widespread use in clinics and commercial marketplaces because the lasers used by the PAI systems, e.g., tunable liquid dye laser systems and optical parametric oscillator (OPO) lasers, are bulky in size, not economical, and use risky flammable and toxic liquid dyes. To overcome these limitations, we are proposing a novel dual-modal photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system based on a solid-state dye laser (SD-PAUSI), which is compact, convenient, and carries far less risk of flammability and toxicity. Using a solid-state dye handpiece that generates 650-nm wavelength, we successfully imaged the MB tube positioned deeply (~3.9 cm) in chicken breast tissue. The SLNs were also photoacoustically detected in the in vivo rats beneath a 2.2-cm-thick layer of chicken breast, which is deeper than the typical depth of SLNs in humans (1.2 ± 0.5 cm). Furthermore, we showed the multispectral capability of the PAI by switching the dye handpiece, in which the MB-dyed SLN was selectively highlighted from the surrounding vasculature. These results demonstrated the great potential of the SD-PAUSI as an easy but effective modality for SLN detection.
Highlights
Photoacoustic (PA) imaging (PAI) has received considerable attention recently as an imaging technique for biomedical applications
We demonstrate a dual-modal photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system based on a solid-state dye laser (SD-PAUSI)
These results accurately described the at spectral tendencies of depicted sentinel lymph node (SLN) and lymphatic vessel (LV) dyed with methylene blue (MB)
Summary
Photoacoustic (PA) imaging (PAI) has received considerable attention recently as an imaging technique for biomedical applications. The contrast in PAI is determined by the difference in optical absorption of different tissues, and the spatial resolution is derived from the acoustic properties of the PA signals [3]. The PAI combines the advantages of both optical and ultrasound imaging and can probe a variety of optical endogenous or exogenous absorbents with high contrast and high spatial resolution, even at depths exceeding the optical diffusion limit (~1 mm) of the conventional optical imaging [4]. Thanks to these advantages, PAI systems have been applied to various preclinical and clinical applications
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