A Low-cost High-sensitivity Endoscopic Probe for Real-time Photoacoustic Imaging

Photoacoustic imaging is a novel imaging technique that combines the benefits of both optical and acoustic imaging modalities, which provide functional and molecular optical contrasts of deep tissue. Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-skin cancer among men with 1.2 million patient cases worldwide each year. Currently PCa’s standard diagnostic approach—the combination of digital rectal exam, transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) have gray areas (over-detection of indolent tumors and under-detection of some aggressive cancers), leading to a quarter of misdiagnosed cases. To address this clinical need, we demonstrated a handheld transrectal photoacoustic tomography (TRPAT) probe with low cost and fast imaging speed (20 fps), which can potentially diagnose prostate and colorectal cancers by providing the molecular and functional properties of the tumor.