Whole-body imaging of mice in under 2 sec with single-sweep volumetric optoacoustic tomography (sSVOT)

Several key performance characteristics determine the applicability of optoacoustic imaging in biology and medicine. In particular, there has been an inherent trade-off between the acquired field-of-view (FOV) and the achievable temporal resolution, which may hamper studies looking at rapid dynamic events at the whole-body level. Herein, we present single-sweep volumetric optoacoustic tomography (sSVOT) as a new approach that accomplishes whole-body three-dimensional imaging of mice within 1.8 s at 200 mu m spatial resolution. sSVOT employs a spherical matrix array transducer in combination with a multibeam illumination approach, the latter playing a critical role in maximizing the effective FOV and imaging speed performance. We render images of intricate vascular and organ anatomy with rich contrast by capitalizing on the large angular coverage of the array transducer, which is rapidly scanned on the back of the mouse from head to tail. sSVOT opens new venues for studying large-scale biological dynamics, such as accumulation and clearance of molecular agents and drugs across multiple organs or circulation of cells.