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Diffuse photon propagation in multilayered geometries.

Sikora J, Zacharopoulos A, Douiri A, Schweiger M, Horesh L, Arridge SR, Ripoll J

Institute of the Theory of Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Information Systems, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is an emerging functional medical imaging modality which aims to recover the optical properties of biological tissue. The forward problem of the light propagation of DOT can be modelled in the frequency domain as a diffusion equation with Robin boundary conditions. In the case of multilayered geometries with piecewise constant parameters, the forward problem is equivalent to a set of coupled Helmholtz equations. In this paper, we present solutions for the multilayered diffuse light propagation for a three-layer concentric sphere model using a series expansion method and for a general layered geometry using the boundary element method (BEM). Results are presented comparing these solutions to an independent Monte Carlo model, and for an example three layered head model.

Published 20 January 2006 in Phys Med Biol, 51(3): 497-516.
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