J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville , FL 32611, USA.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:1113. doi: 10.1038/srep01113. Epub 2013 Jan 23.
Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) offers three-dimensional (3D) structural and functional imaging of living biological tissue with label-free, optical absorption contrast. These attributes lend PAT imaging to a wide variety of applications in clinical medicine and preclinical research. Despite advances in live animal imaging with PAT, there is still a need for 3D imaging at centimeter depths in real-time. We report the development of four dimensional (4D) PAT, which integrates time resolutions with 3D spatial resolution, obtained using spherical arrays of ultrasonic detectors. The 4D PAT technique generates motion pictures of imaged tissue, enabling real time tracking of dynamic physiological and pathological processes at hundred micrometer-millisecond resolutions. The 4D PAT technique is used here to image needle-based drug delivery and pharmacokinetics. We also use this technique to monitor 1) fast hemodynamic changes during inter-ictal epileptic seizures and 2) temperature variations during tumor thermal therapy.
光声断层扫描（PAT）提供了无标记、光学吸收对比的活生物组织的三维（3D）结构和功能成像。这些属性使 PAT 成像在临床医学和临床前研究的各种应用中具有广泛的适用性。尽管 PAT 在活体动物成像方面取得了进展，但仍需要在实时情况下实现厘米深度的 3D 成像。我们报告了四维（4D）PAT 的发展，该技术结合了时间分辨率和使用超声探测器的球形阵列获得的 3D 空间分辨率。4D PAT 技术生成了成像组织的动态图像，能够以百微米-毫秒分辨率实时跟踪动态生理和病理过程。4D PAT 技术用于成像基于针的药物输送和药代动力学。我们还使用该技术监测 1）癫痫发作间期期间的快速血流动力学变化，以及 2）肿瘤热疗期间的温度变化。
