Optical Tomography with Ultrasound Localization for Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Monitoring

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Optical tomography with ultrasound (US) localization uses coregistered ultrasound images to guide optical imaging reconstruction. To simultaneously acquire US images and optical measurements, the authors used a hand-held probe consisting of a commercial US transducer and near-infrared optical imaging sensors of multiple wavelengths. A novel image scheme was used to map the ultrasound-visible lesions for optical imaging reconstruction. As a result, the problem of intense light scattering caused by breast tissue was overcome and reliable tumor hemoglobin concentration and blood oxygen saturation distributions from a group of patients were obtained. These functional parameters are valuable for aiding US diagnosis and for assessing chemotherapy response.

Section snippets

How does near-infrared optical imaging and ultrasound work synergistically?

Photon density waves launched from a source and detected by a detector travel a “banana” path, which can be visualized in Fig. 3. In the figure, photons at each source location were injected into breast tissue. Each photon propagated in the medium, being absorbed or scattered. The scattered photons that reach the detectors carry the background tissue and the lesion optical absorption and scattering information and can be used for tomographic reconstruction to map the lesion and background

Initial clinical results

Pilot clinical trials using the combined approach have been conducted at the University of Connecticut Health Center and Hartford Hospital. To date, more than 100 patients have been enrolled and results have been published [30], [32]. An example obtained from an early-stage invasive ductal carcinoma is shown in Fig. 5 [30]. US showed a nodular mass with internal echoes and the lesion was considered suspicious (see Fig. 5A). The estimated lesion diameter measured from the US image was 8 mm.

Discussion

Because conventional US is used in pulse-echo reflection geometry, it is desirable to acquire optical measurements with the same geometry. Compared with transmission geometry or ring geometry in which the light sources and detectors are deployed on a pair of parallel plates or a ring, reflection geometry has the advantage of probing reduced breast tissue thickness because patients are scanned in the supine position. Consequently, lesions closer to the chest wall can be imaged. In general, the

Acknowledgments

Many people have collaborated in this research project. Drs. Poornima Hegde, Mark Kane, Bipin Jagjivan, and Kristin Zarfos of the University of Connecticut Health Center, and Drs. Edward B. Cronin, Allen A. Currier, and Hugh A. Vine of Hartford Hospital are greatly acknowledged for their contributions to clinical studies. Many people at the Optical and Ultrasound Imaging Laboratory of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Connecticut have contributed to theory

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    The following funding agents are thanked for their funding support: the National Institutes of Health (R01EB002136), the Donaghue Foundation, the ARMY Medical Research and Materiel Command (DAMD17-00-1-0217), and the State of Connecticut.

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