Study of clutter origin in in-vivo epi-optoacoustic imaging of human forearms

Preisser, Stefan; Held, Kai Gerrit; Akarçay, Hidayet Günhan; Jaeger, Michael; Frenz, Martin (2016). Study of clutter origin in in-vivo epi-optoacoustic imaging of human forearms. Journal of optics, 18(9), 094003. IOP Publishing 10.1088/2040-8978/18/9/094003

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Epi-optoacoustic (OA) imaging offers flexible clinical diagnostics of the human body when the irradiation optic is attached to or directly integrated into the acoustic probe. Epi-OA images, however, encounter clutter that deteriorates contrast and significantly limits imaging depth. This study elaborates clutter origin in clinical epi-optoacoustic imaging using a linear array probe for scanning the human forearm. We demonstrate that the clutter strength strongly varies with the imaging location but stays stable over time, indicating that clutter is caused by anatomical structures. OA transients which are generated by strong optical absorbers located at the irradiation spot were identified to be the main source of clutter. These transients obscure deep in-plane OA signals when detected by the transducer either directly or after being acoustically scattered in the imaging plane. In addition, OA transients generated in the skin below the probe result in acoustic reverberations, which cause problems in image interpretation and limit imaging depth. Understanding clutter origin allows a better interpretation of clinical OA imaging, helps to design clutter compensation techniques and raises the prospect of contrast optimization via the design of the irradiation geometry.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Applied Physics
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Applied Physics > Biomedical Photonics

UniBE Contributor:

Preisser, Stefan, Held, Kai Gerrit, Akarçay, Hidayet Günhan, Jaeger, Michael, Frenz, Martin

Subjects:

600 Technology > 620 Engineering
500 Science
500 Science > 530 Physics

ISSN:

2040-8978

Publisher:

IOP Publishing

Language:

English

Submitter:

Simone Corry

Date Deposited:

13 Jul 2017 09:14

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:03

Publisher DOI:

10.1088/2040-8978/18/9/094003

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.96965

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/96965

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