Artifacts in photoacoustic imaging: origins and mitigations
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is rapidly moving from the laboratory to the clinic, increasing the need to understand confounders which might adversely affect patient care. Over the past five years, landmark studies have shown the clinical utility of PAI, leading to regulatory approval of several devices. In this article, we describe the various causes of artifacts in PAI, providing schematic overviews and practical examples, simulated as well as experimental. This work serves two purposes: (1) educating clinical users to identify artifacts, understand their causes, and assess their impact, and (2) providing a reference of the limitations of current systems for those working to improve them. We explain how two aspects of PAI systems lead to artifacts: their inability to measure complete data sets, and embedded assumptions during reconstruction. We describe the physics underlying PAI, and propose a classification of the artifacts. The paper concludes by discussing possible advanced mitigation strategies.
Date Issued
2025-10-01
Date Acceptance
2025-06-24
Citation
Photoacoustics, 2025, 45
ISSN
2213-5979
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Photoacoustics
Volume
45
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbH. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40734666
PII: S2213-5979(25)00068-0
Subjects
Acoustics
ALGORITHM
Engineering
Engineering, Biomedical
ENHANCEMENT
EXCITATION
GENERATION
Imaging artifacts
Instruments & Instrumentation
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Medical imaging
Molecular imaging
MULTISPECTRAL OPTOACOUSTIC TOMOGRAPHY
Radiology
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
RECONSTRUCTION
Review
Science & Technology
Technology
ULTRASOUND
WAVES
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
Germany
Article Number
100745
Date Publish Online
2025-07-05