Multimodal Optoacoustic Imaging

Optoacoustic (OA) or photoacoustic imaging is an emerging technique synergistically combining optical excitation with ultrasonic detection to acquire diverse functional, anatomical, molecular, and metabolic information from living tissues across various scales, from organelles and cells to whole organs and organisms. Despite its powerful capabilities, the technique is hindered with limited specificity, penetration depth, and primarily blood-related contrast in mammalian tissues. Multi-modal approaches combining OA imaging with other imaging techniques have been proposed to overcome these limitations, thus fully exploiting the unique capabilities and complementarity of OA imaging. This chapter summarizes the current state-of-the-art in multimodal optoacoustic imaging systems and their applications, including combinations with ultrasound, fluorescence, and magnetic resonance imaging as well as ionizing methods, such as X-ray computed tomography, single-photon-emission computed tomography, and positron emission tomography.