Bone Health Assessment Using Photoacoustic Temporal Profile Analysis

Non-invasive measurement methods of the optical properties and ultrasonic properties of human tissue offer rich information for diseases diagnosis and therapy. In this study, the feasibility of characterizing strong scattering medium-bone tissue was investigated by the photoacoustic temporal profile analysis (PTPA) method. The time distribution of photoacoustic (PA) signal inherently contains information on the absorption, optical and ultrasonic scattering processes. Numerical simulation of the PA signal were performed on high scattering medium bone samples with different bone mineral densities (BMDs). The resulting PA signal was fitted by exponential fitting, from which the parameters exponential amplitude and exponential slope highly related with absorption and scattering were quantified. The simulation results showed that bone samples with lower BMD have higher exponential amplitude and lower exponential slopes. Based on the advantages that PA measurement is nonionizing, noninvasive and has sufficient penetration in different human tissues, the proposed evaluation method based on PA temporal profile analysis (PTPA) is promising for clinical assessment of osteoporosis.