Feasibility Study of Applying Ferromagnetic Contrast Agents in Thermoacoustic Imaging

Thermoacoustic imaging (TAI) has been applied to many biomedical related areas. Tumor detection is one of the most promising application. But contrast in microwave absorption between tumor and surrounding normal tissues may not be large enough in some situations for reliable detection by TAI. Contrast agents hold the potential to address this problem. A new type of contrast agents based on ferromagnetic resonance is proposed to enhance the strength of generated thermoacoustic signals. Proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate the obvious increase in the thermoacoustic signal magnitude with ferromagnetic resonance induced in the ferromagnetic contrast agents. This new kind of agents can help to increase the reliability and signal to noise ratio for tumor detection by TAI.