Identifying intestinal fibrosis and inflammation by spectroscopic photoacoustic imaging: an animal study in vivo

Yunhao Zhu; Laura A Johnson; Ziyi Huang; Jonathan M Rubin; Jie Yuan; Hao Lei; Jun Ni; Xueding Wang; Peter D R Higgins; Guan Xu

doi:10.1364/BOE.9.001590

Identifying intestinal fibrosis and inflammation by spectroscopic photoacoustic imaging: an animal study in vivo

Biomed Opt Express. 2018 Mar 8;9(4):1590-1600. doi: 10.1364/BOE.9.001590. eCollection 2018 Apr 1.

Authors

Yunhao Zhu^{1

2}, Laura A Johnson³, Ziyi Huang⁴, Jonathan M Rubin⁵, Jie Yuan¹, Hao Lei⁶, Jun Ni⁶, Xueding Wang², Peter D R Higgins³, Guan Xu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 21000, China.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
³ Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁴ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁵ Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁶ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Abstract

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by obstructing intestinal strictures. Conventional imaging modalities can identify the strictures but cannot characterize whether a stricture is predominantly inflammatory or fibrotic. The purpose of this study is to examine the capability of photoacoustic (PA) imaging to characterize intestinal fibrosis and inflammation in vivo. Intestinal strictures in a rat model of CD were imaged with a PA-ultrasound parallel imaging system. Internal and external illuminations were attempted, both with transcutaneous PA signal reception. The PA signal magnitudes acquired at wavelengths targeting individual molecular components and the derived functional information showed significant differences between the inflammatory and fibrotic strictures, consistent with histological inflammation and fibrosis.

Keywords: (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.5120) Photoacoustic imaging; (170.6510) Spectroscopy, tissue diagnostics; (170.7170) Ultrasound.