Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
Key Laboratory of Precision Scientific Instrumentation of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
Rep Prog Phys. 2021 Mar 1;84(3). doi: 10.1088/1361-6633/abdab9.
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is a novel biomedical imaging modality and has experienced fast developments in the past two decades. Spatial resolution is an important criterion to measure the imaging performance of a PACT system. Here we survey state-of-the-art literature on the spatial resolution of PACT and analyze resolution degradation models from signal generation, propagation, reception, to image reconstruction. Particularly, the impacts of laser pulse duration, acoustic attenuation, acoustic heterogeneity, detector bandwidth, detector aperture, detector view angle, signal sampling, and image reconstruction algorithms are reviewed and discussed. Analytical expressions of point spread functions related to these impacting factors are summarized based on rigorous mathematical formulas. State-of-the-art approaches devoted to enhancing spatial resolution are also reviewed. This work is expected to elucidate the concept of spatial resolution in PACT and inspire novel image quality enhancement techniques.
光声计算机断层扫描（PACT）是一种新型的生物医学成像模式，在过去二十年中经历了快速发展。空间分辨率是衡量 PACT 系统成像性能的重要标准。本文综述了 PACT 空间分辨率的最新文献，并分析了从信号产生、传播、接收到图像重建的分辨率退化模型。特别地，综述了激光脉冲持续时间、声衰减、声各向异性、探测器带宽、探测器孔径、探测器视角、信号采样和图像重建算法对分辨率的影响，并进行了讨论。基于严格的数学公式，总结了与这些影响因素相关的点扩散函数的解析表达式。还综述了提高空间分辨率的最新方法。这项工作有望阐明 PACT 中的空间分辨率概念，并激发新的图像质量增强技术。
