High-throughput multi-wavelength time-resolved optical mammograph: importance of in vivo performance assessment

The use of technologies still under development for the upgrade of our multi-wavelength time-resolved optical mammograph, such as silicon photomultipliers and a Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC), highlighted the crucial need for a thorough and progressive instrument characterization: from extensive laboratory tests on phantoms to in vivo measurements. Despite satisfying results on phantoms, in vivo tests urged a significant instrumental change to obtain high-quality breast scans. The setup was upgraded with the adoption of a just-released high-throughput TDC and now grants much wider scan area, better day-by-day reproducibility, and improved signal quality. These results point out the importance of in vivo performance assessment as a general approach for instrument characterization, not limited only to our optical mammograph. After the successful outcomes of the preliminary tests, a clinical study on neoadjuvant chemotherapy monitoring is now ongoing at the San Raffaele Hospital, Milan.