Photoacoustic monitoring of changes in the blood circulation

Photoacoustic (PA) signal generation can be used as the basis for a new medical tomographic technique. In this article, we present results, which have been obtained by applying the PA technique on animals and more specifically on Wistar rats. The primary goal was to investigate the possibility of using PA for monitoring the changes in the blood circulation. This was achieved by tracking the vessel position with one-dimensional scans and by monitoring the changes in the signal due to artificially induced changes in the blood circulation. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.