In-depth quantification by using multispectral time-resolved diffuse optical tomography

Near-infrared diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a medical imaging which gives the distribution of the optical properties of biological tissues. To obtain endogenous chromophore features in the depth of a scattering medium, a multiwavelength/time-resolved (MW/TR) DOT setup was used. Reconstructions of the three-dimensional maps of chromophore concentrations of probed media were obtained by using a data processing technique which manages Mellin-Laplace Transforms of their MW/TR optical signals and those of a known reference medium. The point was to put a constraint on the medium absorption coefficient by using a material basis composed of a given set of chromophores of known absorption spectra. Experimental measurements were conducted by injecting the light of a picosecond nearinfrared laser in the medium of interest and by collecting, for several wavelengths and multiple positions, the backscattered light via two fibers (with a source-detector separation of 15 mm) connected to fast-gated single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) and coupled to a time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) system. Validations of the method were performed in simulation in the same configuration as the experiments for different combination of chromophores. Evaluation of the technique in real conditions was investigated on liquid phantoms composed of an homogenous background and a 10 mm depth inclusion formed of combination of intralipid and inks scanned at 30 positions and at three wavelengths. Both numerical and preliminary phantom experiments confirm the potential of this method to determine chromophore concentrations in the depth of biological tissues.