Improved Photoacoustic Tomography Imaging Scanner Transforms Cancer, Arthritis Diagnosis
Inside Precision Medicine September 30, 2024
Researchers at the University College London (UCL) have developed a new handheld scanner that generates highly detailed 3D photoacoustic images in just seconds, an advancement that could provide for earlier diagnosis of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. The study, published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering, details the technology at the heart of the scanner called photoacoustic tomography (PAT). They show that their new PAT scanner can deliver to clinicians real-time, accurate, and intricate images of blood vessels to aid in the diagnosis in a range of diseases.
PAT imaging is accomplished via laser-generated ultrasound waves that can visualize subtle changes in veins of less than a millimeter and arteries up to 15 millimeters deep in human tissue. Past PAT technologies,...