Breast imaging using optical tomography

Summary form only given. Due to its nonionizing nature, optical mammography could be a very attractive alternative to X-ray screening. The authors have developed a cw optical tomography apparatus with which three-dimensional images of breasts can be obtained in vivo, and it is now being used for clinical research in the Academic Hospital in Maastricht. It measures the attenuation coefficient of breast tissue. The magnitude of the reduced scattering coefficient in breast tissue is approximately 1 mm/sup -1/ and varies less than the absorption coefficient. The subject has to lie down on the machine and let one of her breasts hang freely in a cup containing a fluid. The fluid matches the mean optical properties of the breast, and is kept at approximately 31 /spl deg/C for comfort. The cup has a conical shape with a maximum diameter of 130 mm. On the boundary of the cup 255 optical fibers are mounted that lead to one detector each. Interleaved, 255 fibers are mounted that can be selected sequentially to receive the light of one of three diode lasers that are operating at different wavelengths, namely 658 nm, 786 nm, and 919 nm. All detectors measure simultaneously.