Look and Listen

There are many tools at doctors’ fingertips to diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – a very common condition – including ultrasound, MRI and CT scans, and biopsy. But each of these have drawbacks, ranging from expense and risk (particularly in biopsies) to unsuitability for patients with certain implants (MRI scanning). So researchers are exploring non-invasive alternatives such as photoacoustic tomography (PAT). PAT uses both light and sound waves to generate detailed images, interpreting ultrasound waves given off by structures when laser light is fired onto them. Previously, the technology couldn’t visualise blood vessel detail and movement, but a new iteration, 3D-PAT, overcomes those limitations to precisely reveal liver vessel volume, number, and distribution (as seen in this video) while carefully correcting for the natural movement caused by regular breathing. They used the technique to compare structural differences between obese and lean rats, and hope this approach could ultimately provide quick, safe information for doctors and patients.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Video from work by Xin Tong and colleagues
• Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Advanced Science, November 2022