Improving 3D imaging capability of LED-based photoacoustic imaging for high resolution human vascular imaging applications

Abstract

Visualizing blood vessel networks in 3D is helpful in many superficial vascular imaging applications. We previously reported the feasibility of LED-based photoacoustic imaging in visualizing human vasculature in 3D by linear translation of combined photoacoustic/ultrasound imaging probe. In this work, we improved this 3D imaging functionality by 1) automatic removal of skin PA signal in different 2D slices by ultrasound-based lineation , 2) encoding depth information with different colors and 3)improving the grayscale and hot color maps. All these new features were implemented in the system software and we validated these using phantom and human in vivo imaging experiments. Results demonstrate that the newly implemented features significantly improved the 3D imaging capability in our LED-based photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system. We believe that the improved 3D imaging functionality in the system will be potentially useful for multiple preclinical and clinical applications in which the visualization of vasculature in 3D is a prerequisite.