Three-dimensional imaging of in vivo bones and joints with diffuse optical tomography

We report full three-dimensional (3D) volumetric reconstruction of absorption images of in vivo bones and joints from near-infrared (NIR) tomographic measurements. Imaging experiments were conducted on human fingers and wrists embedded in cylindrical scattering media using a single-detection multi-channel diffuse optical imager. The volumetric optical images were recovered with our 3D finite element based reconstruction algorithm. Our results show that 3D imaging methods can provide details of the joint structure/composition that would be impossible from 2D imaging methods.