Biochemical "decoding" of breast ultrasound images with optoacoustic tomography fusion: First-in-human display of lipid and collagen signals on breast ultrasound

Yonggeng Goh; Ghayathri Balasundaram; Hui Min Tan; Thomas Choudary Putti; Siau Wei Tang; Celene Wei Qi Ng; Shaik Ahmad Buhari; Eric Fang; Mohesh Moothanchery; Renzhe Bi; Malini Olivo; Swee Tian Quek

doi:10.1016/j.pacs.2022.100377

Biochemical "decoding" of breast ultrasound images with optoacoustic tomography fusion: First-in-human display of lipid and collagen signals on breast ultrasound

Photoacoustics. 2022 Jun 15:27:100377. doi: 10.1016/j.pacs.2022.100377. eCollection 2022 Sep.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Diagnostic Imaging, National University Hospital, Singapore.
² Translational Biophotonics Laboratory, Institute of Bioengineering & Bioimaging, Agency for Science, Technology & Research, Singapore.
³ Department of Pathology, National University Hospital, Singapore.
⁴ Department of Breast Surgery, National University Hospital, Singapore.

Abstract

To date, studies which utilized ultrasound (US) and optoacoustic tomography (OT) fusion (US-OT) in biochemical differentiation of malignant and benign breast conditions have relied on limited biochemical data such as oxyhaemoglobin (OH) and deoxyhaemoglobin (DH) only. There has been no data of the largest biochemical components of breast fibroglandular tissue: lipid and collagen. Here, the authors believe the ability to image collagen and lipids within the breast tissue could serve as an important milestone in breast US-OT imaging with many potential downstream clinical applications. Hence, we would like to present the first-in-human US-OT demonstration of lipid and collagen differentiation in an excised breast tissue from a 38-year-old female.

Keywords: Breast; Collagen; Lipid; Optoacoustic; Tomography.