title: Photoacoustic tomography of water in phantoms and tissue.
abstract: Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) has been widely used to image optically absorptive objects in both human and animal tissues. For the first time, we present imaging of water with laser-based PAT. We photoacoustically measure the absorption spectra of water-ethanol mixtures at various water concentrations, and then image water-ethanol and pure-water inclusions in gel and a water inclusion in fat tissue. The significant difference in photoacoustic signals between water and fat tissue indicates that the laser-based PAT has the potential to detect water content in tissue.
authors.affiliation: Washington University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Optical Imaging Laboratory, St Louis, Missouri 63130-4899, USA.
authors.forename: Zhun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Changhui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Lihong V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000737:chemistry*; D000431:Ethanol / Q000737:chemistry; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D014054:Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014867:Water; D000431:Ethanol