Three-dimensional phantom imaging for photoacoustic mammography

We present a study of the laboratory version of a time-resolved photoacoustic mammoscope built based on a parallel plate geometry. An intralipid (IL) phantom with embedded cylindrical dyed gel inhomogeneities of different sizes and optical absorptions was used to test the quality of 3D image reconstruction and ability of studied instrument to detect optical contrast between imaged objects. The temporal backward projection Fourier transform based method was used for image reconstruction. The results of this study show that width at half maximum of images obtained by the photoacoustic mammoscope correlate well with lateral profile of imaged structures and that the optical contrast between imaged objects can be measured with deviation of 35%.