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A working prototype of an optical breast imaging system involving a dual-direction parallel-plate scanning scheme in combination with a mammography machine was demonstrated and applied in imaging healthy and malignant breasts in a clinical environment.

In this presentation, we demonstrate a working prototype of an optical breast imaging system using parallel-paddle architecture with dual-direction scanning, of which the designed module can be incorporated with a mammographic system for the acquisition of optical transmission and reflection information in both directions of up-down and down-up. Additionally, the scanning module enables to move with a designated pitch to accommodate varied breast size for acquiring adequate data to reconstruct the images. Currently, continuous-wave near infrared illumination modules are used for experimentation. The feasibility will be presented by phantom test.

We propose and implement three-dimensional (3-D) ring-scanning equipment for near-infrared (NIR) diffuse optical imaging to screen breast tumors under prostrating examination. This equipment has the function of the radial, circular, and vertical motion without compression of breast tissue, thereby achieving 3-D scanning; furthermore, a flexible combination of illumination and detection can be configured for the required resolution. Especially, a rotation-sliding-and-moving mechanism was designed for the guidance of source- and detection-channel motion. Prior to machining and construction of the system, a synthesized image reconstruction was simulated to show the feasibility of this 3-D NIR ring-scanning equipment; finally, this equipment is verified by performing phantom experiments. Rather than the fixed configuration, this addressed screening/diagnosing equipment has the flexibilities of optical-channel expansion for spatial resolution and the dimensional freedom for scanning in reconstructing optical-property images.