A fiber-based, non-contact scheme for time-domain diffuse fluorescence tomography: methodology and simulative validation

Non-contact scheme is prevalent to diffuse fluorescence tomography (FDT) since it facilitates instrumentation as well as simplifies experimental procedure. Although non-contact FDT generally uses CCD camera as detectors to achieve high throughput of data collection, a fiber-based implementation can make full use of well-established high-sensitive and time-resolved detection techniques. Therefore, a system that combines the fiber-based time-resolved detection and the non-contact geometry of optodes would be significantly attractive, which also means a more complex modeling of photon migration. This paper presents detailed computational aspects of the fiber-based non-contact DFT, including both the forward and inverse models. A pilot validation of the method is performed using simulated data for a two-dimensional case.