Millimeter-resolution acousto-optic quantitative imaging in a tissue model system

We have investigated the application of ultrasound modulated coherent light for quantitative determination of the ratio of dye concentrations and total concentration of absorbers in a blood vessel-mimicking sample. A 3-mm-diam tube containing the mixture of dyes inside an Intralipid-based gel with optical properties similar to tissue was interrogated by two different laser wavelengths in combination with intense microsecond ultrasound bursts. The use of calibration curves allowed us to extract quantitative information on the ratio of dye concentrations with the accuracy of better than 15%, as well as on the total concentration. Furthermore, we demonstrated the feasibility to obtain a quantitative 3-D map of the absorbing structure with a spatial resolution of better than 3 mm. These findings give an outlook to apply this technique for noninvasive 3-D mapping of oxygen saturation and total concentration of hemoglobin in tissue.