Optical imaging using spatially resolved reconstruction of steady-state luminescence

Abstract

Objective

A cancer diagnostics method is proposed using the 3D reconstruction of luminescence-based optical imaging data.

Material and methods

The diffusion equation solution for a cube was used to tackle the forward problem. The forward solution for two-layered media is also applied in the reconstruction method. The inverse problem was solved using a linear reconstruction technique based on the approximation that the light source needing reconstruction can be decomposed into a weighted sum of unit light sources positioned at each node in the search volume. The calculation for the light propagation in the forward problem was done using values cited in literature for the optical properties of the involved tissue.

Results

The system was tested with numerical simulations that assumed correct as well as erroneous values of the optical coefficients for canine prostate at 810 nm. The quantitative accuracy of reconstructed sources diminished from 100% to approximately 50% with an increase from 0 to 50% in the error for the values of the absorption coefficient, and from 0 to 20% in the error for the values of the reduced scattering coefficient, respectively.

Conclusion

The absolute determination of the tumor locations is dependent on the information gathered by the recorded data by the detectors monitoring the light propagation through the tissue under investigation. For a determined or an over-determined system, the locations have been extracted accurately, and partially determined for an under-determined system.