Solid phantom recipe for diffuse optics in biophotonics applications: a step towards anatomically correct 3D tissue phantoms.

Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar,Pranav Lanka,Pierluigi Martella,Andrea Pacheco,Antonio Pifferi,Haiyang Li,Stefan Andersson-Engels

doi:10.1364/boe.10.002090

Abstract

We present a tissue mimicking optical phantom recipe to create robust well tested solid phantoms. The recipe consists of black silicone pigment (absorber), silica microspheres (scatterer) and silicone rubber (SiliGlass, bulk material). The phantom recipe was characterized over a broadband spectrum (600-1100 nm) for a wide range of optical properties (absorption 0.1-1 cm-1, reduced scattering 5-25 cm-1) that are relevant to human organs. The results of linearity show a proper scaling of optical properties as well as the absence of coupling between the absorber and scatterer at different concentrations. A reproducibility of 4% among different preparations was obtained, with a similar grade of spatial homogeneity. Finally, a 3D non-scattering mock-up phantom of an infant torso made with the same recipe bulk material (SiliGlass) was presented to project the futuristic aspect of our work that is 3D printing human organs of biomedical relevance.

Highlights

Tissue-mimicking optical phantoms play a crucial role in characterization, optimization, routine calibration and validation of biophotonics systems [1,2,3]
In our opinion there is still a need for a recipe for a good 3D tissue–mimicking phantom that is robust and tested over the wide range of optical properties covering most of the human organs, preferably characterized over the entire therapeutic wavelength range to benefit the wide community in biophotonics
The optical properties were extracted by the time domain instrument using the method discussed in the previous section

Summary

Introduction

Tissue-mimicking optical phantoms play a crucial role in characterization, optimization, routine calibration and validation of biophotonics systems [1,2,3]. The advent of silicone rubber has enabled the phantoms to mimic optical and mechanical properties to some extent [7,9]. This work used a liquid phantom recipe to obtain realistic optical properties [11]. Taking this technology to solid phantoms was achieved by Dempsey et al who created a 3D printed brain phantom [12]. The recent work of Kennedy et al used a room temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber as a bulk material and a special absorber to mimic optical properties of water and lipid absorption [13]. A recent review of tissue-mimicking optical phantoms can be found in Ref [8]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion