Photoacoustic Imaging of Near-Bone Soft Tissue Vasculature in an ex vivo Phantom.

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging preclinical modality that uses a combination of optics and acoustics mechanisms to visualize differences in optical absorption in target imaging objects. Photoacoustic imaging is potentially suitable for visualizing vasculature, as the hemoglobin in red blood cells is a prominent heat absorber and therefore serves as a great biomarker. Due to acoustic reflection, diffraction and scattering, photoacoustic imaging is subject to artifacts when the target soft tissue is close to bone. We construct an phantom featuring vascularized soft tissue near long bone, to facilitate evaluation of photoacoustic images and to enable future research on artifact removal in photoacoustic imaging.