# Ultra-high-density, compressive and media- adaptive optical breast tomography platform

> **NIH NIH R01** · NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $451,502

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
While the steady transition from 2-D mammography to 3-D digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) in recent years
has resulted in improved breast cancer diagnosis, x-ray based breast imaging techniques are inherently limited
by their inability to provide physiologically relevant functional information. The persistent high percentages of
unnecessary biopsies and poor sensitivity to malignant tumors among dense breasts and early-stage cancers
have motivated the research community to seek additional functional assessment. Diffuse optical tomography
(DOT) – a non-invasive imaging modality using only non-ionizing near-infrared light – has shown promise in
fulfilling such a role by exploiting cancer’s high endogenous contrasts in angiogenesis and metabolism.
However, the low spatial sampling density due to use of optical fibers and the ill-posedness of the DOT inverse
problem have resulted in low image resolution in DOT, hampering its clinical translation. For nearly two
decades, our group has been a key contributor in advancing DOT for breast clinical diagnosis via multi-modal
imaging. We have developed translational imaging systems combining DOT with DBT as well as prior-guided
algorithms that “fuse” x-ray contrasts with DOT reconstructions, and tested these systems in clinical studies
with over 450 subjects. Under the initial funding period, we have developed a new DOT imaging architecture
that utilizes fiber-less widefield pattern-illumination and camera detection to achieve ultra-high-density and
uniform spatial sampling. We have also developed highly efficient compressive-sensing strategies to take
advantage of such unprecedented dense datasets without long acquisition time. With these advances, our
optical mammography co-imager (OMCI) system prototype is capable of providing a raw measurement density
several orders of magnitude higher than previously reported high-density DOT systems at only a fraction of the
cost and instrument size. Built on this strong momentum, in the renewed period, we aim to further enhance
optical measurement density by developing the first-in-the-field widefield frequency-domain (FD) DOT system
combining single-pixel imaging with our compressive-sensing approaches. Moreover, we will also implement
real-time adaptive illumination/detection patterns optimized for individual breasts. Furthermore, through our
decade-long research in DOT, we have developed a comprehensive suite of toolboxes that have been
rigorously validated using clinical data, offering unique capabilities for widefield DOT forward modeling, pattern
compression/optimization, and prior-guided image reconstructions. With a strong track record for developing
and maintaining high-quality open-source tools, we are excited to share these packages with the biophotonics
research community as open-source software. Both our next-generation widefield FD breast DOT hardware
and algorithm innovations will be tested by an experienced clinical team with ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10982160
- **Project number:** 2R01CA204443-06A1
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Qianqian Fang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $451,502
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2016-05-26 → 2029-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10982160

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10982160, Ultra-high-density, compressive and media- adaptive optical breast tomography platform (2R01CA204443-06A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10982160. Licensed CC0.

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