Phantoms for evaluating the impact of skin pigmentation on photoacoustic imaging and oximetry performance

Recent reports have raised concerns of potential racial disparities in performance of optical oximetry technologies. To investigate how variable epidermal melanin content affects performance of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) devices, we developed plastisol phantoms combining swappable skin-mimicking la...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biomedical optics express 2023-11, Vol.14 (11), p.5735-5748
Main Authors: Vogt, William C., Wear, Keith A., Pfefer, T. Joshua
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent reports have raised concerns of potential racial disparities in performance of optical oximetry technologies. To investigate how variable epidermal melanin content affects performance of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) devices, we developed plastisol phantoms combining swappable skin-mimicking layers with a breast phantom containing either India ink or blood adjusted to 50–100% SO 2 using sodium dithionite. Increasing skin pigmentation decreased maximum imaging depth by up to 25%, enhanced image clutter, and increased root-mean-square error in SO 2 from 8.0 to 17.6% due to signal attenuation and spectral coloring effects. This phantom tool can aid in evaluating PAI device robustness to ensure high performance in all patients.
ISSN:2156-7085
2156-7085
DOI:10.1364/BOE.501950