Stable tissue-simulating phantoms with various water and lipid contents for diffuse optical spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Biomaterials Science
• Medical Imaging Phantoms

Background:

• Accurate simulation of human breast tissue optical properties is crucial for developing and validating medical imaging techniques.
• Existing phantom materials often lack stability or the ability to precisely mimic diverse tissue compositions.
• Solid phantoms with tunable optical properties are needed for reliable characterization of breast tissue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel method for creating stable solid phantoms.
• To simulate the optical absorption and scattering characteristics of human breast tissue.
• To enable precise control over water-to-lipid ratios within the phantoms.

Main Methods:

• Development of a method to produce solid phantoms with variable water-to-lipid ratios.
• Solidification of emulsion phantoms to ensure stability for at least one month.
• Evaluation of phantom characteristics using a custom-developed six-wavelength time-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (TD-DOS) system.
• Validation of TD-DOS measurements against magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data.

Main Results:

• Successfully produced solid phantoms with tunable water-to-lipid ratios.
• Achieved phantom stability for a minimum of one month.
• Demonstrated the capability of the TD-DOS system to accurately measure water, lipid, and hemoglobin concentrations in the phantoms.
• Validated the TD-DOS system's performance using MRI.

Conclusions:

• The developed solid phantoms effectively simulate the optical properties of human breast tissue.
• The novel phantom production method offers enhanced stability and compositional control.
• The validated TD-DOS system provides a reliable tool for quantifying tissue components in breast phantoms.