Blood oxygenation monitoring by diffuse optical tomography

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) makes it possible to reconstruct, in two or three dimensions, the internal structure of the biological tissues based on the distribution of the absorption coefficient and the reduced scattering coefficient, using optical measurements at multiple source — detector positions on the tissue surface. The measurement of the light intensity transmitted through the tissue can be also used to compute the haemoglobin and oxyhaemoglobin concentrations, measuring the selective absorption of the main blood chromophores by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The spectral selectivity of the system and the evaluation of the blood volume and blood oxygenation (BV and OXY distributions), together with the reconstruction of the inner structure of the tissue, can improve the accuracy of early cancer diagnosis, based on the tissue angiogenesis characterisation.