Clinical Data Analysis for the Combined Optical and Tomosynthesis Breast Imaging

摘要

Combining 2D X-ray mammography or 3D tomosynthesis with diffuse optical tomography for breast imaging is advantageous in facilitating clinical diagnosis by fusing the structural X-ray images with functional optical images. In this study, we imaged 65 patients with a combined tomosynthesis/diffuse optical breast imaging system developed at Massachusetts General Hospital. The bulk optical properties and patient demographics were summarized in this paper. The averaged total-hemoglobin for 60 healthy breasts is 21 μM which is comparable with literature values given the applied mammographic compression in our experiments. The averaged oxygen saturation is 76%. The comparison of contra-lateral breast measurements also demonstrated correlations in total hemoglobin and oxygen saturation. Image reconstructions of the healthy breasts with moderate-sized fibro-glandular regions correctly recovered the chest-wall muscle, fibro-glandular tissue as well as the surrounding fatty tissue. For dense breasts, the contrast between the chest-wall and the fibro-glandular region is small and the most pronounced feature of the image is a low-absorption region in the center of the breast. We hypothesized that this is caused by pressure induced blood-redistribution. Supportive evidence for this hypothesis had been shown with mechanical simulations of breast compression.