The potential application of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) technology to diagnostic imaging and therapeutic monitoring of inflammatory arthritis has been explored. The feasibility of our bench-top joint imaging systems in delineating soft articular tissue structures in a noninvasive manner was validated first on rat models and then on human peripheral joints. Based on the study on commonly used arthritis rat models, the capability of PAI to differentiate arthritic joints from the normal was also examined. With sufficient imaging depth, PAI can realize tomographic imaging of a human peripheral joint or a small-animal joint as a whole organ noninvasively. By presenting additional optical contrast and tissue functional information such as blood volume and blood oxygen saturation, PAI may provide an opportunity for early diagnosis of inflammatory joint disorders, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, and for monitoring of therapeutic outcomes with improved sensitivity and accuracy.

Date Published: 11 December 2012
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8553, Optics in Health Care and Biomedical Optics V, 85531L (11 December 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.2012196

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8553:
Optics in Health Care and Biomedical Optics V
Qingming Luo; Ying Gu; Xingde D. Li, Editor(s)