Frequency-domain diffuse optical tomography of breast tissue: detector size and imaging geometry

Some design considerations for frequency-domain diffuse optical tomography (FD-DOT) are examined in this paper. The effects of detector size upon the measurements are calculated, and indicate that when the detector is larger than 3 mm, there are phase shift and intensity changes which must be considered. Also a comparison of slab-type and circular-type computed tomography geometries demonstrates that both can be used equally well for finite element-based diffusion reconstruction. These calculations are important for the design and development of an optimized frequency-domain optical mammography imaging system.