Real-time co-registered photoacoustic and ultrasonic imaging for early endometrial cancer detection driven by cylindrical diffuser

Abstract

In illuminating tissues, a cylindrical diffuser (CD) has an advantage over regular laser sources due to its ability to illuminate a larger volume of the target tissue. This paper presents a co-registered large volume photoacoustic (PA) and ultrasonic (US) imaging for early endometrial cancer (EEC) detection using CD. It has the advantage that the US imaging system is outside the body and only the PA excitation device is inside the body, which makes the system more efficient and less invasive for EEC detection. The paper reports on two sets of experiments. The first set produced real-time PA images of blood vessel phantom. The second set demonstrated the imaging of pig uterus ex vivo. The results show that the system has the potential for imaging and characterizing of EEC.

Keywords

• Endometrial cancer
• cylindrical diffuser
• photoacoustic imaging