Near Infrared Diffused Light Imaging with Ultrasound

描述(申请人提供)：这项研究的目标是提高乳房诊断成像中的检测灵敏度和特异性。这将通过利用一种新的混合成像方法来实现，该方法将基于扩散波的近红外(NIR)光学技术与超声波相结合。近红外成像在检测乳腺肿瘤方面具有很高的灵敏度/特异度，但由于近红外光在人体组织中的漫反射特性，其空间分辨率受到固有的限制。此外，近红外成像重建通常是不确定的和不合适的。另一方面，超声具有良好的成像能力，可以分辨出乳腺组织中几毫米级的病变。然而，由于正常组织、良恶性病变的声学特征重叠，超声检测乳腺癌的敏感性和特异性不高。我们的混合成像系统旨在将近红外成像在区分正常、良性和恶性组织方面的高对比度与超声成像固有的高空间分辨率相结合。具体地说，光学图像重建算法将通过使用由共同配准的超声图像提供的关于病变几何的辅助知识来优化。将对体检和放射学研究确定的良、恶性病变患者进行队列检查，所获得的数据将用于评估近红外/超声混合方法，并将其与传统超声诊断进行比较。这项研究计划的完成将验证一种检测和诊断乳房病变的新方法，为乳腺癌的早期发现和适当治疗带来新的机会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this research is to improve detection sensitivity and specificity in diagnostic imaging of the breast. This will be accomplished by exploiting a novel hybrid imaging method, which combines near infrared (NIR) optical techniques based on diffusive waves with ultrasound. NIR imaging affords high sensitivity/specificity in the detection of breast tumors, However, it is intrinsically limited in spatial resolution because of the diffuse nature of NIR light in human tissue. In addition, NIR imaging reconstruction is in general underdetermined and ill posed. On the other hand, ultrasound has good imaging capability and can resolve a few mm lesions in breast tissues. However, ultrasound sensitivity and specificity for breast cancer detection are not high due to the overlap in acoustic features of normal tissue, benign and malignant lesions. Our hybrid imaging system is designed to combine the high contrasts of NIR imaging in distinguishing among normal, benign and malignant tissues with the high spatial resolution inherent in ultrasound imaging. Specifically, optical image reconstruction algorithms will be optimized by using ancillary knowledge about lesion geometry provided by co-registered ultrasound images. A cohort of patients with benign and malignant lesions, as determined by physical exam and radiologic study, will be examined, and the data thus obtained will be used to assess the hybrid NIR/ultrasound method and to compare it with conventional ultrasound diagnosis. The detection sensitivity and specificity of the combined method compared to ultrasound alone will be estimated using biopsy results as "gold' standard. Completion of this research plan will serve to validate a novel method for detection and diagnosis of breast lesions, resulting in new opportunities for early detection and appropriate treatment of breast carcinoma.