Fluorescence diffuse optical tomography: Time-resolved versus continuous-wave in the reflectance configuration

International audienceContext and objectives In the context of fluorescence diffuse optical tomography, the time-resolved approach was shown to improve the reconstruction quality compared to the continuous-wave approach when adopting the transmittance configuration. However, the improvement seriously decreases in the presence of noise. The scope of this paper is to investigate the additional value of the time-resolved approach in the reflectance configuration. Material and methods A comparative study between time-resolved and continuous-wave reconstructions is provided in the reflectance configuration. Reconstructions are performed from synthetic measurements in a slab geometry assuming Poisson noise statistics. Results and discussion In the reflectance configuration, the reconstruction quality, expressed in terms of the global reconstruction error or in terms of the localization and quantification of a local inclusion, is shown to be sensibly higher when the time-resolved approach is considered rather than the continuous-wave one. This behavior is observed for which the maximum number of detected photons is around 106. Conclusion In the reflectance configuration, considering realistic level of signal the time-resolved approach is shown to outperform continuous-wave approach