Characterizing intestinal inflammation and fibrosis in Crohn's disease by photoacoustic imaging: feasibility study

Hao Lei; Laura A Johnson; Shengchun Liu; David S Moons; Teng Ma; Qifa Zhou; Michael D Rice; Jun Ni; Xueding Wang; Peter D R Higgins; Guan Xu

doi:10.1364/BOE.7.002837

Characterizing intestinal inflammation and fibrosis in Crohn's disease by photoacoustic imaging: feasibility study

Biomed Opt Express. 2016 Jun 27;7(7):2837-48. doi: 10.1364/BOE.7.002837. eCollection 2016 Jul 1.

Authors

Hao Lei¹, Laura A Johnson², Shengchun Liu³, David S Moons⁴, Teng Ma⁵, Qifa Zhou⁵, Michael D Rice², Jun Ni¹, Xueding Wang⁶, Peter D R Higgins², Guan Xu⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
² Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
³ College of Physical Science and Technology, Heilongjiang University, Harbin, 150080, China; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁴ Department of Pathology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁵ Department of Biomedical Engineering, NIH Ultrasonic Transducer Resource Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁷ Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Abstract

The pathology of Crohn's disease (CD) is characterized by obstructing intestinal strictures because of inflammation (with high levels of hemoglobin), fibrosis (high levels of collagen), or a combination of both. The accurate characterization of the strictures is critical for the management of CD. This study examines the feasibility of characterizing intestinal strictures by Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) without extrapolation from superficial biopsies. Ex vivo normal rat colon tissue, inflammatory and fibrotic intestinal strictures in rat trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS) model were first differentiated by a PA-US parallel imaging system. Surgically removed human intestinal stricture specimens were afterwards imaged by a multiwavelength acoustic resolution PA microscope (ARPAM). The experiment results suggest that PAI is a potential tool for the diagnosis of the diseased conditions in intestinal strictures.

Keywords: (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.5120) Photoacoustic imaging; (170.7170) Ultrasound.

Abstract

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