Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a hybrid imaging modality that integrates the strengths from both optical imaging and acoustic imaging while simultaneously overcoming many of their respective weaknesses. In previous work, we reported on a real-time 3D PAI system comprised of a 32-element hemispherical array of transducers. Using the system, we demonstrated the ability to capture photoacoustic data, reconstruct a 3D photoacoustic image, and display select slices of the 3D image every 1.4 s, where each 3D image resulted from a single laser pulse. The present study aimed to exploit the rapid imaging speed of an upgraded 3D PAI system by evaluating its ability to perform dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging. The contrast dynamics can provide rich datasets that contain insight into perfusion, pharmacokinetics and physiology. We captured a series of 3D PA images of a flow phantom before and during injection of piglet and rabbit blood. Principal component analysis was utilized to classify the data according to its spatiotemporal information. The results suggested that this technique can be used to separate a sequence of 3D PA images into a series of images representative of main features according to spatiotemporal flow dynamics.

Date Published: 4 March 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8581, Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2013, 858152 (4 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2004647

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8581:
Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2013
Alexander A. Oraevsky; Lihong V. Wang, Editor(s)