High-resolution diffuse optical tomography in optically-thick media

3 1 | Introduction 1 1.1 | Limitations of the Current Breast Imaging Modalities 1 1.2 | Limited Ability to Identify Peripheral Vascular Disease 4 1.3 | Study Motivations and Thesis Roadmap 5 2 | Background Information 7 2.1 | Fundamentals of Diffuse Optical Tomography 7 2.2 | Potential Clinical Applications for DOT Imaging 10 2.3 | Improving DOT Reconstruction Capabilities 11 3 | Implementation 17 3.1 | Angular Prior Generation 17 3.2 | Image Reconstruction 19 3.4 | Experimental Setup and Validation 22 4 | Results 25 4.1 | Validation in Simple Inclusions 25 4.2 | Assessment of More Complex Vascular-Like Samples 27 4.3 | Simulations Within Heterogenous Media 30 5 | Discussion 32 5.1 | DOT Imaging of Unprecedentedly Small Inclusions Within Optically-Thick Media.. 32 5.2 | Optimal Angular Resolution 33