Optical and Acoustic Imaging for Interventional Device Guidance

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Medical needles are central to a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, including tissue biopsies and injections of anaesthesia. Accurately and efficiently reaching deep tissue targets can be very challenging. Many needle insertions are performed with ultrasound imaging systems that are exterior to the body, and with the sense of touch that is relayed via the needles to a physician's hands. These techniques are often insufficient for directly detecting the tissue targets, however, and consequently there is a risk of inaccurate needle placement. For instance, with biopsies of the prostate, the suspected cancerous lesions may not be visible with ultrasound imaging, and consequently the biopsies may be obtained from incorrect locations. As a new Lecturer at the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at UCL, one of my primary objectives is to transform medical needles so that they that can provide molecular information about tissue and thereby significantly improve the accuracy of needle-based procedures. Leveraging recent advances in optical telecommunications technologies, these needles will deliver brief light pulses to tissues at their tips. By virtue of the photoacoustic effect, absorption of light pulses will generate sound waves that can be detected and converted into images of molecular absorption in real-time. The research programme kick-started by an EPSRC First Grant will ultimately lead to the development of a broad range of medical devices that could directly detect tissue targets and critical structures to improve clinical outcomes and decrease the risks of complications.