Reconstruction algorithm in photoacoustic tomography

The photoacoustic (PA) effect refers to the generation of acoustic waves by the modulated optical radiation. A novel tissue imaging technique, photoacoustic imaging is using the acoustic waves made in the PA effect to reconstruct the sample. It whose characteristic is combining the advantages of pure optical imaging and pure ultrasound imaging can map the high contrast and high spatial resolution tissue image. The PA imaging reconstruction algorithm performing the signal filtering operation first and then to reduce the signal data to the image, has the important influence on the quality of the image made by the experiment of PA. With the laser appearance in 1960s, the PA imaging technique made great advance and the reconstruction algorithm gains quick development. The prevalent PA reconstruction algorithms include Kruger's 3D inverse Radon transform, Frenz's Fourier transform, Lihong Wang's method based on the analytic solution. Nowadays, PA imaging technique develops to the real-time PA image. So to choose a suitable fast algorithm is significant to the PA imaging system's application. We will review the current PA imaging reconstruction algorithm and compare them in the aspect of the tissue imaging spatial resolution and so on.