太赫兹医学成像研究进展

太赫兹波所具有的无损性以及大量生物分子在太赫兹频段的指纹特性,使其在医学成像领域有着良好的应用前景。本文首先简要概述了太赫兹的医学成像技术手段,其次分别介绍了太赫兹在离体、活体组织中成像的研究现状。生物组织中的水会对太赫兹波产生强吸收,使得成像对比度受限。目前,为了减少组织中的水对成像的影响,针对离体组织的太赫兹成像大多需要进行切片、脱水等预处理,活体中的成像则主要应用在浅表组织。文章重点介绍了活体成像中有望提高太赫兹成像对比度的纳米粒子造影剂,最后对太赫兹医学成像的发展进行了展望。

Research progress of terahertz medical imaging

Terahertz wave has non-destructive nature and fingerprint characteristics for a large number of biomolecules,thus has a good application prospect in the field of medical imaging.In this review,we presented a brief introduction on the terahertz medical imaging systems,and the applications of terahertz medical imaging in biological tissues from in vitro to in vivo.Terahertz wave can be strongly absorbed by water,then the terahertz imaging contrast will be severely deteriorated in vivo.So the terahertz medical imaging was mainly used for detecting epidermal tissues or biological tissues with pretreatments,including excision,dehydration and so on.This review also concluded the recent development of nanoparticle contrast agents for improving the contrast of terahertz imaging in vivo.Finally,the future development of terahertz medical imaging was predicted.