Patent ID: 9743839
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: A61B

Claim:
1. An optoacoustic imaging system for imaging tissue comprising: a first light source capable of generating pulses of light at a first wavelength, and a second light source capable of generating pulses of light at a second wavelength; a handheld probe having a distal end and a proximal end, the handheld probe comprising an optical window located at the distal end of the handheld probe, the optical window being in optical communication with the first light source and the second light source and capable to transmit the pulses of light to the tissue, and an ultrasound transducer array having an active end located at the distal end of the handheld probe, the ultrasound transducer array capable of receiving an acoustic return signal from the tissue; a computing subsystem for generating images from said acoustic return signal, said computing subsystem being configured to process and store a plurality of frames in a buffer, each frame of the plurality of frames comprising data including a sinogram; and an ultrasound image; a display for displaying the images generated by the computing subsystem; and a user input device; the optoacoustic imaging system being configured to switch, upon actuation of a playback mode via the user input device, from a live mode wherein images from the acoustic return signal are displayed in real time to the playback mode wherein at least one image is generated from at least one of the plurality of frames; the optoacoustic imaging system further being configured such that at least one parameter affecting the processing of said plurality of frames into an output image displayed upon said display can be enabled during the playback mode such that the output image displayed varies from an image generated from the frame when the optoacoustic imaging system is not in the playback mode; wherein, when the parameter is enabled, the output image displayed in playback mode is generated using interframe persistent artifact reduction processing; wherein the interframe persistent artifact reduction processing is configured to be performed on each of the plurality of frames generated from the pulses of light for each of the first wavelength and the second wavelength; and wherein each of the plurality of frames is grouped into groups, each group including one or more prior frames and one or more future frames of the same total light-energy.