Abstract

Medical endoscopy is commonly used for examining internal tissue and diagnostic procedures such as biopsies. However, clinical white-light endoscopes only provide visualisation of the tissue surface. Definitive histopathological analysis is currently required and relies on extracting tissue samples during a biopsy procedure. Advanced optical endoscopy modalities such as endoscopic optical coherence tomography and confocal fluorescence endomicroscopy have been investigated to provide tissue characterisation in situ. However, although proven useful for certain applications, these modalities suffer from either a lack of molecular contrast or a challenge with depth-resolved information. In the past two decades, photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has emerged as a promising tool in various pre-clinical and clinical applications. Different from purely optical imaging modalities, PAI is based on the optical absorption contrast and has highly scalable spatial resolution and tissue penetration depth owing to its ultrasound-based collection. These properties make it applicable in a wide range of clinical disciplines including cardiology, oncology, and neurology [1-3].

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