Imaging of human thyroid in vitro using focused photoacoustic tomography
基于聚焦光声层析技术的甲状腺离体组织成像

Locating and imaging the specific pathological lesions in human thyroid are pretty helpful for reliable diagnosis and effective treatment of thyroid nodules.In this paper,we evaluate the feasibility of photoacoustic tomography(PAT) for imaging thyroid tissue in vitro.Imaging is performed based on an imaging system with a 30 MHz focused transducer.In the experiment,350μm transverse resolution and 74μm axial resolution are achieved.A normal thyroid tissue and the tissue with a mimic lesion embedded are imaged in vitro,Separately.As a result,the localization and the imaging of mimic pathological lesion in human thyroid tissue are realized.We demonstrate that our imaging system is able to detect the lesion from normal thyroid tissue successfully.This technique is expected to be a potential clinical tool for increasing diagnostic accuracy and performing more effective treatment of thyroid diseases.