Thermoacoustic imaging of human finger joints and bones

Abstract

In this study, we explore a new application of thermoacoustic tomography (TAT) for imaging human nger joints and bones. Three volunteers' nger joints and bones were visualized with satisfying image contrast and spatial resolution by a TAT scanner. The recovered TAT images revealed apparent microwave absorption di erences between the joint cavity and bone. Beyond the full single nger imaging, a volunteer's four ngers were clearly and concurrently imaged. To con rm our observations, MRI images of two volunteers' ngers were performed, and the TAT recovered shape/size of the ngers were consistent with the MRI ndings. To further assess the feasibility of TAT for nger joint and bone imaging, we quantitatively calculated the conductivity of a case. This initial study suggests that TAT may be a good candidate for screening, diagnosing, and monitoring treatment of joint and bone diseases.

Thermoacoustic tomography of in vivo rat brain

“…In addition, TAT is an emerging noninvasive imaging modality capable of providing high electric contrast and high ultrasound resolution imaging of tissue. 5,6 TAT has been so far used for imaging soft tissue such as joints 7,8 and breast. 4,[9][10][11] While an initial e®ort has been made to image brain tissue using TAT, it has been limited to ex vivo tissue 12 or the boundary information of in vivo rat brain.…”