A self-normalized, full time-resolved method for fluorescence diffuse optical tomography.

A full time-resolved scheme that has been previously applied in diffuse optical tomography is extended to time-domain fluorescence diffuse optical tomography regime, based on a finite-element-finite-time-difference photon diffusion modeling and a Newton-Raphson inversion framework. The merits of using full time-resolved data are twofold: it helps evaluate the intrinsic performance of time-domain mode for improvement of image quality and set up a valuable reference to the assessment of computationally efficient featured-data-based algorithms, and provides a self-normalized implementation to preclude the necessity of the scaling-factor calibration and spectroscopic-feature assessments of the system as well as to overcome the adversity of system instability. We validate the proposed methodology using simulated data, and evaluate its performances of simultaneous recovery of the fluorescent yield and lifetime as well as its superiority to the featured-data one in the fidelity of image reconstruction.

[1]  R. Weissleder,et al.  Fluorescence molecular tomography resolves protease activity in vivo , 2002, Nature Medicine.

[2]  Ge Wang,et al.  A finite-element-based reconstruction method for 3D fluorescence tomography. , 2005, Optics express.

[3]  Michael S. Patterson,et al.  Diffusion Modeling of Fluorescence in Tissue , 2003 .

[4]  Simon R. Arridge,et al.  Calibration techniques and datatype extraction for time-resolved optical tomography , 2000 .

[5]  S. Achilefu,et al.  Novel receptor-targeted fluorescent contrast agents for in vivo tumor imaging. , 2000, Investigative radiology.

[6]  Eva M Sevick-Muraca,et al.  Three-dimensional fluorescence enhanced optical tomography using referenced frequency-domain photon migration measurements at emission and excitation wavelengths. , 2002, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[7]  M. Schweiger,et al.  A finite element approach for modeling photon transport in tissue. , 1993, Medical physics.

[8]  Vasilis Ntziachristos,et al.  Looking and listening to light: the evolution of whole-body photonic imaging , 2005, Nature Biotechnology.

[9]  Vasilis Ntziachristos,et al.  Accuracy of fluorescent tomography in the presence of heterogeneities:study of the normalized born ratio , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[10]  A. Godavarty,et al.  Tomographic fluorescence imaging in tissue phantoms: a novel reconstruction algorithm and imaging geometry , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[11]  Joseph P Culver,et al.  Quantitative diffuse optical tomography for small animals using an ultrafast gated image intensifier. , 2008, Journal of biomedical optics.

[12]  D Boas,et al.  Simultaneous imaging and optode calibration with diffuse optical tomography. , 2001, Optics express.

[13]  Feng Gao,et al.  Time-resolved diffuse optical tomography and its application to in vitro and in vivo imaging. , 2007, Journal of biomedical optics.

[14]  S. Arridge,et al.  Imaging changes in blood volume and oxygenation in the newborn infant brain using three-dimensional optical tomography , 2004, Physics in medicine and biology.

[15]  Mark A A Neil,et al.  Fluorescence lifetime imaging by using time-gated data acquisition. , 2007, Applied optics.

[16]  H. Jiang,et al.  Frequency-domain fluorescent diffusion tomography: a finite-element-based algorithm and simulations. , 1998, Applied optics.

[17]  Vasilis Ntziachristos,et al.  The inverse source problem based on the radiative transfer equation in optical molecular imaging , 2005 .

[18]  Kevin J Webb,et al.  Source-detector calibration in three-dimensional Bayesian optical diffusion tomography. , 2002, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[19]  S. Arridge.  Optical tomography in medical imaging , 1999 .

[20]  Feng Gao,et al.  A linear, featured-data scheme for image reconstruction in time-domain fluorescence molecular tomography. , 2006, Optics express.

[21]  Alessandro Torricelli,et al.  Time-resolved scanning system for double reflectance and transmittance fluorescence imaging of diffusive media. , 2008, The Review of scientific instruments.

[22]  Simon R. Arridge,et al.  Computational calibration method for optical tomography. , 2005 .

[23]  Huijuan Zhao,et al.  Influences of Target Size and Contrast on Near Infrared Diffuse Optical Tomography – a Comparison Between Featured-data and Full Time-resolved Schemes , 2005 .

[24]  Feng Gao,et al.  Improvement of image quality in diffuse optical tomography by use of full time-resolved data. , 2002, Applied optics.

[25]  D. Delpy,et al.  A 32-channel time-resolved instrument for medical optical tomography , 2000 .

[26]  Simon R Cherry,et al.  In vivo molecular and genomic imaging: new challenges for imaging physics. , 2004, Physics in medicine and biology.

[27]  Feng Gao,et al.  Time-resolved diffuse optical tomographic imaging for the provision of both anatomical and functional information about biological tissue. , 2005, Applied optics.

[28]  K. Licha.  Contrast Agents for Optical Imaging , 2002 .

[29]  Gregory Boverman,et al.  Time resolved fluorescence tomography of turbid media based on lifetime contrast. , 2006, Optics express.

[30]  F Gao,et al.  Simultaneous mapping of absorption and scattering coefficients from a three-dimensional model of time-resolved optical tomography. , 2000, Applied optics.

[31]  F Lesage,et al.  Time Domain Fluorescent Diffuse Optical Tomography: analytical expressions. , 2005, Optics express.

[32]  Eva M Sevick-Muraca,et al.  Fluorescence-enhanced, near infrared diagnostic imaging with contrast agents. , 2002, Current opinion in chemical biology.

[33]  C. Bouman,et al.  Fluorescence optical diffusion tomography. , 2003, Applied optics.