Diffuse optical 3D-slice imaging of bounded turbid media using a new integro-differential equation.

A new integro-differential equation for diffuse photon density waves (DPDW) is derived within the diffusion approximation. The new equation applies to inhomogeneous bounded turbid media. Interestingly, it does not contain any terms involving gradients of the light diffusion coefficient. The integro-differential equation for diffusive waves is used to develop a 3D-slice imaging algorithm based the on angular spectrum representation in the parallel plate geometry. The algorithm may be useful for near infrared optical imaging of breast tissue, and is applicable to other diagnostics such as ultrasound and microwave imaging.