title: Quantitative photoacoustic tomography based on the radiative transfer equation.
abstract: We describe a method for quantitative photoacoustic tomography (PAT) based on the radiative transfer equation (RTE) coupled with the Helmholtz photoacoustic wave equation. This RTE-based quantitative PAT allows for accurate recovery of absolute absorption coefficient images of heterogeneous media and provides significantly improved image reconstruction for the cases where the photon diffusion approximation may fail. The method and associated finite element reconstruction algorithm are validated using a series of tissuelike phantom experiments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Huabei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000379:methods*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D014054:Tomography / Q000379:methods*