OPTIMIZATION OF 3-D IMAGE-GUIDED NEAR INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY USING BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD.

Multimodality imaging systems combining optical techniques with MRI/CT provide high-resolution functional characterization of tissue by imaging molecular and vascular biomarkers. To optimize these hybrid systems for clinical use, faster and automatable algorithms are required for 3-D imaging. Towards this end, a boundary element model was used to incorporate tissue boundaries from MRI/CT into image formation process. This method uses surface rendering to describe light propagation in 3-D using diffusion equation. Parallel computing provided speedup of up to 54% in time of computation. Simulations showed that location of NIRS probe was crucial for quantitatively accurate estimation of tumor response. A change of up to 61% was seen between cycles 1 and 3 in monitoring tissue response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.