Handbook of Biomedical Optics

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18.1 Introduction

In microscopy, light is minimally scattered allowing high-

resolution imaging but with shallow penetration depths (a few

hundred micrometers). While this is suitable for imaging thin

tissue sections ex vivo, it can be limiting for in vivo imaging of

intact tissues. In contrast to microscopy, diuse optical tomog-

raphy (DOT) is a technique more similar to x-ray computed

tomography (CT), which utilizes light to image large tissue

volumes such as the breast or brain (Arridge 1999). DOT relies

on a model of light scattering within the tissue to compensate

for the stochastic nature of light propagation in tu ...