Recent updates of real-time clinical photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system at POSTECH

Abstract

We had developed a real-time clinical photoacoustic (PA) and ultrasound (US) imaging system by combining a programmable ultrasound machine and a wavelength-tunable laser. The system was able to acquire real-time images of biological tissue, but the user had to restart the image acquisition software to modify parameters for optimizing the images. We have recently updated the system to adjust imaging parameters in real-time by implementing a real-time parameter control software, which is compatible with the programmable platform of the US machine. To adjust the parameters of both PA and US images, we also implemented custom functional blocks including beamforming, frequency demodulation, log compression, decimation, scan conversion, and image display. To acquire real-time images, we performed all the calculations by using parallel processing with a graphic processing unit in US machine. The updated system has the great potential to be widely applied to a variety of clinical and preclinical applications because it allows real-time optimization of imaging parameters as well as visualizing the images in real-time.