Adaptive hp finite element method for fluorescence molecular tomography with simplified spherical harmonics approximation.

Recently, the simplified spherical harmonics equations (SPN) model has attracted much attention in modeling the light propagation in small tissue geometries at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. In this paper, we report an efficient numerical method for fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) that combines the advantage of SPN model and adaptive hp finite element method (hp-FEM). For purposes of comparison, hp-FEM and h-FEM are, respectively applied to the reconstruction process with diffusion approximation and SPN model. Simulation experiments on a 3D digital mouse atlas and physical experiments on a phantom are designed to evaluate the reconstruction methods in terms of the location and the reconstructed fluorescent yield. The experimental results demonstrate that hp-FEM with SPN model, yield more accurate results than h-FEM with diffusion approximation model does. The phantom experiments show the potential and feasibility of the proposed approach in FMT applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]