Seeing Hypoxia: High-resolution, in vivo oximetry

While methods exist for measuring blood oxygenation, they can be invasive, low temopral and/or spatial resolution, superficial or expensive.  Because oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin absorb light differently at different wavelengths, photoacoustic imaging can be used to generate a high resolution parametric map of the oxygen saturation of blood completely non-invasively.  This allows for the real-time monitoring of functional processes with the added advantage of haivng this oximetry data fused with high resolution anatomical images.

Oxy-Hemo mode can be used for:

• Hypoxia assessment within the tumor microenvironment
• Ischemia measurement in stroke and myocardial infarction
• Longitudinal assessment of angiogenesis
• Hemodynamic response to therapy
• Studies of placental oxygenation

Subcutaneous tumor showing spatial distribution of oxy and deoxyhemoglobin for hypoxia assessment

E14 embryo (right) and associated placenta (left) showing oxygenation distribution