In vivo photoacoustic flowmetry at depths of the diffusive regime based on saline injection

We propose a saline injection-based method to quantify blood flow velocity in vivo with acoustic-resolution photoacoustic tomography. By monitoring the saline–blood interface propagating in the blood vessel, the flow velocity can be resolved. We first demonstrated our method in phantom experiments, where a root mean square error of prediction of 0.29  mm/s was achieved. By injecting saline into a mouse tail vein covered with 1 mm chicken tissue, we showed that the flow velocity in the tail vein could be measured at depths, which is especially pertinent to monitoring blood flow velocity in patients undergoing intravenous infusion.