Utilising the coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model in diffuse optical tomography

Abstract

The coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model can be used as light transport model in turbid media with non-diffusive regions. In the coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model, light propagation is modelled with the radiative transfer equation in sub-domains in which the approximations of the diffusion equation are not valid and the diffusion approximation is used elsewhere in the domain. In this work, the image reconstruction problem of diffuse optical tomography utilising the coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model is considered. Absorption and scattering distributions are estimated using the coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model as a forward model for light propagation. The results are compared to reconstructions obtained using other light transport models. The results show that the coupled radiative transfer - diffusion model can produce as good estimates for absorption and scattering as the full radiative transfer equation also in situations in which the approximations of the diffusion equation are not valid.