A team from the University College London (UCL) has created a new hand-held scanner capable of generating highly detailed 3D photoacoustic imaging in mere seconds.

Photoacoustic tomography image of diseased vasculature in the foot of a patient with type-2 diabetes. Source: UCL

While PAT imaging relies on laser-generated ultrasound waves to visualize slight changes — early indicators of disease — in the less-than-millimeter-scale veins and arteries and up to 15 mm deep in human tissue, current-day PAT technology is slow to generate quality 3D images for use by healthcare professionals.

Further, PAT scan patients are required to be completely motionless, otherwise images might blur and subsequently not produce clinically useful images. Likewise, older photoacoustic scanners took more than five minutes to take an image.

However, the team suggests that its new device reduces that time to just a few seconds or less and also improves image quality, potentially helping to diagnose cancer, cardiovascular disease and arthritis in three to five years’ time while also accelerating the time it takes to acquire images — between 100 and 1,000 times faster than previous scanners.

In the lab, the team used the scanner during pre-clinical tests on 10 patients with type-2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or breast cancer, as well as on seven healthy volunteers.

The researchers reported that in three patients with type-2 diabetes, the scanner produced detailed 3D images of the microvasculature in the feet, highlighting deformities and structural changes in the vessels. The device also visualized skin inflammation linked to breast cancer.

Additionally, for conditions like peripheral vascular disease (PVD), which is a complication of diabetes, early signs of changes in tiny blood vessels indicative of the disease were visible using the new scanner, thus promising early detection and treatment.

The team also suggests that the device could better visualize cancerous tumors, which have a high density of small blood vessels that are too small to see with other imaging techniques.

“Photoacoustic imaging could be used to detect the tumor and monitor it relatively easily. It could also be used to help cancer surgeons better distinguish tumor tissue from normal tissue by visualizing the blood vessels in the tumor, helping to ensure all of the tumor is removed during surgery and minimizing the risk of recurrence,” noted the researchers.

An article detailing the device, “A fast all-optical 3D photoacoustic scanner for clinical vascular imaging,” appears in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.