Review of Cost Reduction Methods in Photoacoustic Computed Tomography

TL;DR

This paper reviews various strategies to reduce the costs of Photoacoustic Computed Tomography systems, aiming to facilitate broader clinical adoption by lowering barriers related to optical sources, detectors, and data acquisition units.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of cost reduction methods and offers cost estimates for developing low-cost PACT systems, aiding future research and development.

Findings

Identified key cost drivers in PACT systems

Reviewed existing cost reduction techniques

Provided cost estimates for low-cost PACT implementations

Abstract

Photoacoustic Computed Tomography (PACT) is a major configuration of photoacoustic imaging, a hybrid noninvasive modality for both functional and molecular imaging. PACT has rapidly gained importance in the field of biomedical imaging due to superior performance as compared to conventional optical imaging counterparts. However, the overall cost of developing a PACT system is one of the challenges towards clinical translation of this novel technique. The cost of a typical commercial PACT system originates from optical source, ultrasound detector, and data acquisition unit. With growing applications of photoacoustic imaging, there is a tremendous demand towards reducing its cost. In this review article, we have discussed various approaches to reduce the overall cost of a PACT system, and provided a cost estimation to build a low-cost PACT system.