Phase-Retrieved Tomography enables imaging of a Tumor Spheroid in Mesoscopy Regime

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel phase-retrieved tomography method for imaging tumor spheroids in the mesoscopic regime, eliminating the need for data registration and improving deep resolution in optical tomographic imaging.

Contribution

The proposed registration-free imaging protocol uses autocorrelation and phase retrieval algorithms to enhance resolution and simplify the process of imaging biological specimens.

Findings

Achieves higher deep resolution imaging of tumor spheroids.

Eliminates the need for data alignment in tomographic reconstruction.

Demonstrates robustness with single image acquisition.

Abstract

Optical tomographic imaging of biological specimen bases its reliability on the combination of both accurate experimental measures and advanced computational techniques. In general, due to high scattering and absorption in most of the tissues, multi view geometries are required to reduce diffuse halo and blurring in the reconstructions. Scanning processes are used to acquire the data but they inevitably introduces perturbation, negating the assumption of aligned measures. Here we propose an innovative, registration free, imaging protocol implemented to image a human tumor spheroid at mesoscopic regime. The technique relies on the calculation of autocorrelation sinogram and object autocorrelation, finalizing the tomographic reconstruction via a three dimensional Gerchberg Saxton algorithm that retrieves the missing phase information. Our method is conceptually simple and focuses on single image acquisition, regardless of the specimen position in the camera plane. We demonstrate increased deep resolution abilities, not achievable with the current approaches, rendering the data alignment process obsolete.