LEVERAGING CONTRAST AGENT KINETICS FOR ROBUST REFLECTANCE MODE FLUORESCENCE TOMOGRAPHY.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Optical Tomography
• Surgical Navigation

Background:

• Fluorescence Image Guided Surgery (FIGS) uses surface measurements for target localization.
• Precise 3D localization of deep surgical targets remains challenging due to inverse problem complexities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a Fluorescence Diffuse Optical Tomography (FDOT) scheme for accurate 3D localization of deep tumors.
• To leverage differential contrast agent kinetics between malignant and normal tissues.

Main Methods:

• Proposed an FDOT scheme reconstructing 3D tumor location from time-series epi-fluorescence measurements.
• Conducted sequential synthetic experiments mimicking Indocyanine Green (ICG) dye kinetics in tumors versus normal tissue.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated robust 3D localization of targets up to 1cm deep.
• Achieved accurate reconstruction in the presence of realistic tumor-to-background ratios.

Conclusions:

• The proposed FDOT method offers a viable solution for precise 3D localization of deep surgical targets.
• This approach enhances Fluorescence Image Guided Surgery by overcoming limitations of surface measurements.