基于聚焦光声层析技术的甲状腺离体组织成像

Imaging of human thyroid in vitro using focused photoacoustic tomography

对人体甲状腺内的病变组织进行定位和成像对于准确诊断和有效治疗甲状腺疾病是至关重要的.本文评估了利用光声层析技术对离体甲状腺组织进行成像的可行性,并利用基于30 MHz超声换能器的聚焦光声成像系统对甲状腺进行扫描成像.实验中成像系统的横向分辨率和纵向分辨率分别达到了350μm和74μm.分别对正常离体甲状腺组织和模拟病变甲状腺组织进行光声成像.实验结果表明,本成像系统能够有效区分和鉴别正常甲状腺组织和病变组织.此项技术有望进一步提高甲状腺疾病诊断的准确率,以便更为有效地指导疾病的治疗,具有潜在的临床应用前景.

Locating and imaging the specific pathological lesions in human thyroid are pretty helpful for reliable diagnosis and effective treatment of thyroid nodules. In this paper, we evaluate the feasibility of photoacoustic tomography （PAT） for imaging thyroid tissue in vitro. Imaging is performed based on an imaging system with a 30 MHz focused transducer. In the experiment, 350 ~tm transverse resolution and 74 btm axial resolution are achieved. A normal thyroid tissue and the tissue with a mimic lesion embedded are imaged in vitro, Separately. As a result, the localization and the imaging of mimic pathological lesion in human thyroid tissue are realized. We demonstrate that our imaging system is able to detect the lesion from normal thyroid tissue successfully. This technique is expected to be a potential clinical tool for increasing diagnostic accuracy and performing more effective treatment of thyroid diseases.