Imaging the Human Thyroid Using Three-Dimensional Diffuse Optical Tomography: A Preliminary Study

Thyroid cancer is usually diagnosed by ultrasound imaging and fine-needle aspiration biopsy. However, diagnosis of follicular thyroid carcinomas (FTC) difficult because FTC lacks nuclear atypia a consensus on histological interpretation. Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) offers the potential to diagnose it can measure tumor hypoxia, while image reconstruction still challenging mainly due complex anatomical features neck. In this study, we attempted solve issue creating finite element model human neck excluding trachea (a void region). By absorption coefficients at three wavelengths, 3D tissue oxygen saturation maps are obtained for first time DOT.