Fluorescence yield and lifetime tomography from time-resolved transmittances of a breast tumor phantom

In optical tumor detection region, there has been recently a considerable interest in simultaneously reconstructing yield and lifetime distributions of fluorescent imaging agents inside a pathologic tissue, since combined monitoring of these two parameters provides a potential means of in vivo interrogating quantitative and environmental information of specific molecules as well as accessing interactions among them. This paper describes the structure of a multi-channel time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) system for early breast tumor detection and how we use it to reconstruct the distribution of fluorescent parameters. By using a normalized Born appropriation algorithm, the proposed examination scheme in a transmission mode is experimentally validated to achieve simultaneous reconstruction of the fluorescent yield and lifetime distributions with reasonable accuracy. The performance of the instrument will be proved by using two targets be of different fluorescent agents embedded in solid phantom for image reconstruction.