Patent ID: 8239006

Claim:
A method for medical imaging using diffusive optical tomography and fluorescent diffusive optical tomography, wherein the method comprises: scanning a tissue volume with near-infrared light to obtain structural parameters, wherein the tissue volume includes a biological entity; scanning the tissue volume with near-infrared light to obtain optical and fluorescence measurements of the scanned volume; segmenting the scanned volume into a first region and a second region; and, reconstructing an optical image and a fluorescence image of the scanned volume from the structural parameters and the optical and fluorescence measurements; the reconstructing comprising: obtaining structural information and functional information about the biological entity contained in the scanned volume from the structural parameters; wherein structural information about the biological entity contained in the scanned volume is obtained using the equation (2) ϕ fl ⁡ ( r S ⁢ ⁢ 1 , r D ⁢ ⁢ 2 ) ϕ fl ⁡ ( r S ⁢ ⁢ 1 , r D ⁢ ⁢ 1 ) = ∫ Ω ⁢ G ex ⁡ ( r S ⁢ ⁢ 1 , r ) ⁢ G fl ⁡ ( r , r D ⁢ ⁢ 2 ) ⁢ N ⁡ ( r ) ⁢ ⅆ r 3 ∫ Ω ⁢ G ex ⁡ ( r S ⁢ ⁢ 1 , r ) ⁢ G fl ⁡ ( r , r D ⁢ ⁢ 1 ) ⁢ N ⁡ ( r ) ⁢ ⅆ r 3 ( 2 ) where r is a spatial variable, r S1 is the position of the first emitter, r D1 and r D2 are positions of the first and second detector respectively, where the subscript “ex” indicates the variable is measured at the excitation wavelength, and the subscript or superscript “fl” indicates that the variable is measured at the emission wavelength, G is a Green's function, which is a mathematical function describing a distribution of photons generated by a point light source in a highly scattering medium with infinite geometry and N (r) is the fluorophore concentration; using a model to obtain theoretically calculated data for the structural information and the functional information; comparing the theoretically calculated data with experimentally measured data to obtain an objective function; and accepting the theoretically calculated data if the objective function lies within an acceptable limit.