Three-dimensional spatial localization of thin fluorophore-filled capillaries in thick scattering media
2008
Fluorescence optical diffuse tomography (fDOT) is of much interest in molecular imaging to retrieve information
from fluorescence signals emitted from specifically targeted bioprocesses deep within living tissues. An exciting
application of fDOT is in the growing field of tissue engineering, where 3D non-invasive imaging techniques are
required to ultimately grow 3D engineered tissues. Via appropriate labelling strategies and fluorescent probes,
fDOT has the potential to monitor culture environment and cells viability non-destructively directly within
the bioreactor environment where tissues are to be grown. Our ultimate objective is to image the formation
of blood vessels in bioreactor conditions. Herein, we use a non-contact setup for small animal fDOT imaging
designed for 3D light collection around the sample. We previously presented a time of flight approach using a
numerical constant fraction discrimination technique to assign an early photons arrival time to every fluorescence
time point-spread function collected around the sample. Towards bioreactor in-situ imaging, we have shown the
capability of our approach to localize a fluorophore-filled 500 μm capillary immersed coaxially in a cylindrically
shaped bioreactor phantom containing an absorbing/scattering medium representative of experiments on real
tissue cultures. Here, we go one step further, and present results for the 3D localization of thinner indocyanine
green labelled capillaries (250 μm and 360 μm inner diameter) immersed in the same phantom conditions and
geometry but with different spatial configurations (10° and 30° capillary inclination).
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