In vivo cell characteristic extraction and identification by photoacoustic flow cytography

Abstract

We present a photoacoustic flow cytography with fast crosssectional (B-scan) imaging to precisely identify specific cells in vivo. The B-scan imaging speed of the system is up to 200 frame/s with a lateral resolution of 1.5 μm, which allows to dynamically image the flowing cells within the microvascular. The shape, size and photoacoustic intensity of the target cells are extracted from streaming images and integrated into a standard pattern to distinguish cell types. Circulating red blood cells and melanoma cells in blood vessels are simultaneously identified on melanoma-bearing mouse model. The results demonstrate that in vivo photoacoustic flow cytography can provide cells characteristics analysis and cell type's visual identification, which will be applied for noninvasively monitoring circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and analyzing hematologic diseases.

A practical guide to photoacoustic tomography in the life sciences

“…7b) 86 . PA flowmetry can detect circulating tumor cells in the blood stream, with high sensitivity and high throughput, using endogenous contrast (e.g., melanin 40, 87 ) or targeted exogenous contrast (e.g., gold nanoparticles targeting breast cancer cells 18 ).…”

Photoacoustic viscoelasticity imaging dedicated to mechanical characterization of biological tissues

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] It overcomes the resolution disadvantages of pure optical imaging and the contrast disadvantages of pure ultrasound imaging, bene¯ting from the capacity of high-resolution sensing optical contrast at depths beyond the optical transport mean-free-paths. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] PA imaging is based on the PA e®ect. 34 When irradiated by pulsed laser, tissue absorbs the optical energy and converts it into ultrasound due to thermal expansion, which then can be detected by transducers.…”

Toward in vivo biopsy of melanoma based on photoacoustic and ultrasound dual imaging with an integrated detector

“…However, the examination accuracy rate is low in the detection of early-stage melanoma because of the poor definition at shallow levels [16,17]. PAI was a hybrid imaging modality [18][19][20][21], the image can be reconstructed by detecting the acoustic pressure irradiated by a short pulsed laser beam [22][23][24]. Previous works demonstrated that PAI could be used in the detection of melanoma [25,26], but melanin in most melanomas has a broad and strong absorption spectrum, which causes a high light attenuation.…”