Hand-held optoacoustic imaging: A review

Optoacoustic imaging is a medical imaging modality that uses optical excitation and acoustic detection to generate images of tissue structures based up optical absorption within a tissue sample. This imaging modality has been widely explored as a tool for a number of clinical applications, including cancer diagnosis and wound healing tracking. Recently, the optoacoustic imaging community has published a number of reports of hand-held optoacoustic imaging devices and platforms; these hand-held configurations improve the modality’s potential for commercial clinical implementation. Here, we review recent advancements in hand-held optoacoustic imaging platforms and methods, including recent pre-clinical applications, and we present an overview of the remaining limitations in optoacoustic imaging that must be addressed to increase the translation of the modality into commercial and clinical use. Keywords: Hand-held, Optoacoustic tomography, Photoacoustic microscopy, Multispectral, Raster scanning