Combined optoacoustic and ultrasound tomography for investigation of inflamed finger joints

Arthritic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and osteoarthritis, have a prevalence between 2 and 3% and lead to joint destruction and deformation resulting in a loss of function. Current diagnostic methods rely on B-scan and Doppler ultrasound, x-ray or MRI, which have the drawbacks of low sensitivity and high user-dependency, involvement of ionizing radiation and high costs, respectively. We propose a new approach based on a combination of ultrasound and optoacoustic tomography for high sensitivity imaging of inflammation induced hypervascularization on finger joints. Optoacoustic sig…