Los Angeles, CA, May 2, 2024 – imagine a full-body scan in 10 seconds, revealing not just tissues but also the intricate network of your blood vessels-without a trace of radiation or bulky magnets. That’s the promise of a new 3D imaging system developed by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), perhaps revolutionizing how we detect and monitor everything from brain injuries to diabetic foot complications.
new 3D Imaging System Tackles MRI, CT, and Ultrasound Limitations
A noninvasive technique combining ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging offers faster, cheaper, and more comprehensive scans.
- The new system, dubbed RUS-PAT, creates 3D images of both tissue and blood vessels simultaneously.
- It’s faster and less expensive than MRI, avoids radiation used in CT scans, and provides more detail than customary ultrasound.
- Researchers successfully imaged the brain, breast, hand, and foot, demonstrating broad clinical potential.
- A key challenge remains improving image clarity when scanning the brain due to skull distortion.
What are the benefits of RUS-PAT compared to existing imaging techniques? This platform addresses critical limitations of current medical imaging, including expense, the area it can scan at once, image detail, and scan time, according to Charles Liu, MD, PhD, professor of clinical neurological surgery, urology and surgery at the Keck School of medicine and co-senior author of the study.
Current medical imaging-including ultrasound,X-ray,computed tomography (CT),and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-all have drawbacks. Cost, scan time, and the depth and detail of the images they can capture vary substantially. RUS-PAT aims to overcome these hurdles.
the technology combines rotational ultrasound tomography (RUST) and photoacoustic tomography (PAT). RUST uses sound waves and an arc of detectors to build a 3D image of tissues, while PAT directs a laser beam that’s absorbed by hemoglobin in the blood. The vibrating molecules then emit ultrasonic frequencies,also measured by the detector
“This is an early but important proof-of-concept study,showing that RUS-PAT can create medically meaningful images across multiple parts of the body,” Liu said. “We’re now continuing to refine the system as we move toward future clinical use.”
The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health [R01 CA282505, U01 EB029823 (BRAIN Initiative) and R35 CA220436 (Outstanding Investigator Award)], builds on previous work demonstrating PAT’s ability to image brain activity.
“Photoacoustics opens up a new frontier of human study, and we believe this technology will be critical for the development of new diagnostics and patient-specific therapies,” said Jonathan Russin, MD, co-first author of the study and professor and chief of neurosurgery at the University of Vermont.
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