IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2019 Jun;66(6):1810-1813. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2019.2904502. Epub 2019 Mar 12.
A photoacoustic signal is proportional to the product of the optical absorption coefficient and the local light fluence; quantitative photoacoustic measurements of the optical absorption coefficients, therefore, require an accurate compensation of optical fluence variation. Usually, an additional diffuse optical tomography is incorporated to estimate the light fluence variation, but it is often troubled with the bulky measurement system. On this note, we present a dual-modality photoacoustic fusion imaging method that is implemented with a normal photoacoustic imaging (PAI) device.
A single piezoelectric transducer is employed to receive the photoacoustic waves and passive ultrasound (PU) waves simultaneously. Since the PU wave is generated by the backscattering and diffuse reflection photons, it has the capacity to facilitate diffuse reflectance (DR) imaging. We merged photoacoustic and DR imaging based on their dual-modality with a compensation of the optical fluence variation.
The absorption coefficient differences caused by the light fluence variation are reduced more than half with the proposed method, when comparing to the pure photoacoustic imaging.
The dual-modality photoacoustic fusion imaging is able to correct the PAI errors caused by the optical fluence variation.
The proposed method can be widely accepted by different PAI applications to compensate the light fluence variations without any additional required element.
光声信号与光吸收系数和局部光强度的乘积成正比；因此，光吸收系数的定量光声测量需要对光强度变化进行精确补偿。通常，会额外进行漫射光学层析成像以估计光强度变化，但该方法通常会受到庞大的测量系统的困扰。基于此，我们提出了一种双重模式光声融合成像方法，该方法采用普通光声成像（PAI）设备实现。
单个压电换能器同时接收光声波和被动超声（PU）波。由于 PU 波是由背散射和漫反射光子产生的，因此它具有促进漫反射（DR）成像的能力。我们基于它们的双重模式，结合光强度变化的补偿，融合光声和 DR 成像。
与纯光声成像相比，所提出的方法可将光强度变化引起的吸收系数差异减少一半以上。
该双重模式光声融合成像能够纠正光强度变化引起的 PAI 误差。
该方法可广泛应用于不同的 PAI 应用中，无需额外的所需元件即可补偿光强度变化。
