Photoacoustic imaging of blood vessels based on modified simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique

Abstract

Photoacoustics as a potential and noninvasive medical imaging technology，it combines the advantages of ultrasound imaging and optical imaging to provide high ultrasonic resolution and high optical contrast tissue images. A reconstruction algorithm named the modified simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique (MSIRT) using in limited-view data in photoacoustic imaging was studied. The simulation and experiments result demonstrated that MSIRT has good performance in photoacoustic imaging for limited-view data at angles 90°，135° and 180°. It works much better than traditional algebraic reconstruction algorithm in rectification of the measurement and the speed of convergence. A circular scan with a single-element transducer system was used to obtain photoacoustic signals through 180° in the experiment. This technique provides a high contrast and high resolution (about 60μm) photoacoustic imaging of blood vessels of a chicken embryo based on MSIRT. It greatly reduced the data acquisition time. This method could be potentially used to realtime monitoring of cerebral blood flow and the vascular damage during photodynamic therapy.