Intrinsic precision limit in steady-state and time-domain fluorescence diffuse optical imaging

In this communication, the intrinsic precision in the localization of a fluorescent source in a turbid medium is analyzed for various fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (fDOT) setups in reflection geometry via a rigorous statistical methodology, the Cramer-Rao bound. Firstly, a spatially and temporally resolved imaging technique (TD) is considered and the strong impact of the fluorescence life-time is revealed. Then, these performances are compared with other standard setups, namely a spatially resolved in a continuous wave setup (CW) and a single detector in a time resolved setup (ITD).