We introduce an entirely new technique, termed Photo-Magnetic Imaging (PMI), which overcomes the limitation of pure optical imaging and provides optical absorption at MRI spatial resolution. PMI uses laser light to heat the medium under investigation and employs MR thermometry for the determination of spatially resolved optical absorption in the probed medium. A FEM-based PMI forward solver has been developed by modeling photon migration and heat diffusion in tissue to compare simulation results with measured MRI maps. We have successfully performed PMI using 2.5 cm diameter agar phantom with two low optical absorption contrast (x 4) inclusions under the ANSI limit. Currently, we are developing the PMI inverse solver and undertaking further phantom and in vivo experiments.

Date Published: 13 March 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8574, Multimodal Biomedical Imaging VIII, 857404 (13 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2003614

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8574:
Multimodal Biomedical Imaging VIII
Fred S. Azar; Xavier Intes, Editor(s)