Feasibility Study of a Breast Phantom Imaging utilizing a Time Resolved Optical Technique

The utilization of Near-Infrared Radiation (NIR) to probe specific areas of the human body for imaging purposes would benefit patients due to the absence of any dosimetric load. However, tissue environments are highly diffusive media which allow only a part of the initial NIR transmitted photons to be detected. Even more, from the detected rays only a small fraction are forward (ballistic component) or almost forward (snake component) scattered photons capable of carrying any desired anatomical information. In this simulation study performed with PhoSim, a Monte Carlo simulator specifically dedicated to Time-Resolved Optical Tomographic modalities, a simple breast phantom is used to calculate the efficiency as well as the imaging capabilities of the Time-Resoled Optical Imaging method.