Image sensor based Diffuse Optical Tomographic System

Abstract

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a promising biomedical imaging modality that can provide the metabolic state of tissues sitting deep inside body, non-invasively. This health state is mapped from the recovered three-dimensional distribution of optical parameters, estimated from boundary photon-flux measurements. In a conventional DOT imaging system, delivery of probing beam to tissue and photon flux measurements are carried out with the help of dedicated optical fiber arrangements. A modified experimental setup is proposed that replaces the measuring optical fibers by a camera unit, and the experimental results obtained from a tissue mimicking phantom are reported. The camera measures the boundary photon-flux over the region of interest (ROI) space-continuously in a denser grid. The increase of measurements per projection improves the rank of the system matrix and hence reduces the ill-posedness associated with the DOT imaging. Experimental results obtained from a tissue mimicking cylindrical shape phantom are presented that show a good agreement with the known values.