Sonioptix is exploring new breast imaging technologies that use light, sound, and EchoWell Health to improve how breast tissue is visualized and analyzed. By combining photoacoustic imaging with ultrasound, we can capture both structural information and tumor-associated vascular features without ionizing radiation or contrast agents.
Our breast photoacoustic imaging work uses light-generated sound signals to highlight blood vessel patterns that may support breast cancer diagnosis, classification, and treatment response monitoring. Alongside this, our EchoWell Health-assisted wireless ultrasound research focuses on low-cost handheld imaging, using advanced image analysis to help identify suspicious regions from patient-acquired scans and support future volumetric reconstruction.
The upright breast imaging system that eliminates operator error and addresses the limitations of mammograms while combining photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging for non-invasive and non-ionizing breast cancer diagnosis.
Overview of the system setup. (A) 3D schematic drawing of the system. L, the lift table; T, translation stages. (B) Cross-sectional view of the system. A, acoustic wave; F, fiber bundle; H, hot mirror; L, light beam; M, cold mirror; and U, the ultrasound transducer array.
Trip 1: the transducer is placed alone the left side of the breast and scans away from the chest wall; Lateral shift: lateral movement of 85.6 mm; Trip 2: the transducer scans toward the chest wall to cover the right half of the breast.
Combination of images acquired in the round-trip scan. (A) The imaging results for a breast cup size of C. (B) The imaging results for a breast cup size of D. The first trip covers the right portion of the breast, while the second trip covers the left portion of the breast. The last column contains combined images from two trips.
We repeated scanning twice with two sets of parameters: the original setting (5 incident angles, 1.6 V firing voltage), and the improved version (9 incident angles, 10 V firing voltage) for comparison. The results are displayed in respectively. The new US acquisition setting provided a greater contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and contrast ratio.
Cross-sectional (A) PA and (B) US images acquired by the top transducer. Both images show the strong interfaces created by the breast surfaces. In the PA image, depth-enhanced weighting was removed to reveal the signals of the breast surfaces. (C) PA image overlaid on the US image. The US image is shown in grayscale, while the PA image is shown in color.
Cross-sectional images acquired by the three imaging modalities. (a) PA cross-sectional image. The contrast (marked by the red dashed circle) can be seen in the upper portion of the image. (b) Ultrasound cross-sectional image. The hypoechoic contrast (marked by the green dashed circle) can be seen on the left side of the image. (c) The cross-sectional SWEI image. The stiff inclusion (marked by the black dashed circle) is shown on the right side of the image.