ABSTRACT
Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging, Technical University of Mu¨nich and Helmholtz Center Mu¨nich, Neuherberg, Germany
12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 12.2 Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
12.2.1 Light propagation model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 12.2.1.1 Photon interaction with biological tissue . . . . 244 12.2.1.2 The diffusion approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 12.2.1.3 Model for a fluorescence heterogeneity . . . . . . . 248
12.2.2 Reconstruction of the fluorochrome distribution . . . . . . . . 249 12.3 FMT and hybrid FMT systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
12.3.1 Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 12.3.1.1 Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 12.3.1.2 Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 12.3.1.3 360◦ projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
12.3.2 Multimodal optical imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 12.3.2.1 Optical tomography and MRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 12.3.2.2 FMT-XCT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Optical imaging refers to imaging techniques that use light as a tool of observation. A large variety of light sources, from visible to near-infrared light, can be used in many different source-detector configurations. This has enabled the development of a wide range of imaging methods and approaches from the macroscopic observation of a patient or an animal to microscopic studies, with numerous applications in clinical practice and biomedical research.
