Raman tomography of tissue phantoms and bone tissue

We report tomographic reconstruction of objects located several millimeters below the surface of highly scattering media. For this purpose we adapted proven software developed for fluorescence tomography with and without the use of spatial priors1. For this first demonstration we acquired Raman spectra using an existing ring/disk fiber optic probe with fifty collection fibers2. Several illumination ring diameters were employed to generate multiple angles of incidence. Tomographic reconstruction from Raman scatter was tested using a 9.5 mm diameter Teflon® sphere embedded in a gel of agarose and 1% Intralipid. Blind reconstruction of the sphere using the 732 cm-1 C-F stretch yielded an accurate shape but an inaccurate depth. Using the known shape and position of the object as spatial priors, a more accurate reconstruction was obtained. We also demonstrated a reconstruction of the tibial diaphysis of an intact canine hind limb using spatial priors generated from micro-computed tomography. In this first demonstration of Raman tomography in animal tissue, the P-O stretch of the bone mineral at 958 cm-1 was used for the reconstruction. An accurate shape and depth were recovered.