title: Deep tissue photoacoustic computed tomography with a fast and compact laser system.
abstract: Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) holds great promise for biomedical imaging, but wide-spread implementation is impeded by the bulkiness of flash-lamp-pumped laser systems, which typically weigh between 50 - 200 kg, require continuous water cooling, and operate at a low repetition rate. Here, we demonstrate that compact lasers based on emerging diode technologies are well-suited for preclinical and clinical PACT. The diode-pumped laser used in this study had a miniature footprint (13 × 14 × 7 cm3), weighed only 1.6 kg, and outputted up to 80 mJ per pulse at 1064 nm.In vitro, the laser system readily provided over 4 cm PACT depth in chicken breast tissue.In vivo, in addition to high resolution, non-invasive brain imaging in living mice, the system can operate at 50 Hz, which enabled high-speed cross-sectional imaging of murine cardiac and respiratory function. The system also provided high quality, high-frame rate, and non-invasive three-dimensional mapping of arm, palm, and breast vasculature at multi centimeter depths in living human subjects, demonstrating the clinical viability of compact lasers for PACT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Depeng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Yuehang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Weiran
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Dandan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Upendra
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Chitgupi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Jumin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA; College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Functionalized Probes for Chemical Imaging in Universities of Shandong, Key Laboratory of Molecular and Nano Probes, Ministry of Education, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Clean Production of Fine Chemicals, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Lidai
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Lovell
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xia
keywords: (110.0110) Imaging systems; (110.5120) Photoacoustic imaging; (140.0140) Lasers and laser optics