Development of clinical photoacoustic ultrasound probe holder

A prevailing difficulty in Photoacoustic (PA) Ultrasound (US) is identified as the application of the transducer onto surface of the subject at a constant force. PA US technique utilizes the optical absorption contrast and ultrasound spatial resolution to image small tumours residing deep in the biological tissues. Optical absorption will be done at various depth within multi-layered tissue. The angled optical fibres bundles for pulse laser light delivery that was integrated with a clinical ultrasound array system, due to the unconventional weight of the optical fibres bundles and the clinical ultrasound array system, injures can be sustained by the user over a prolonged period. As the optical penetration was to be maximised at a certain angle, the used of a holder was required to demonstrate the effectiveness and the potential feasibility of the imaging technique for clinical applications. With modifications to translate the probe holder backwards/forward, left/right and up/down. An evaluation was done to demonstrate the clinical potential of this non-invasive imaging techniques for facile identification of sentinel lymph nodes and lymphatic vessels in cancer staging and metastasis detection.Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering