26515158

PMC4775313

Measuring blood flow speed in the optical diffusive regime in humans has been a long standing challenge for photoacoustic tomography. In this work, we proposed a cuffing-based method to quantify blood flow speed in humans with a handheld photoacoustic probe. By cuffing and releasing the blood vessel, we can measure the blood flow speed downstream. In phantom experiments, we demonstrated that the minimum and maximum measurable flow speeds were 0.035 mm/s and 42 mm/s, respectively. In human experiments, flow speeds were measured in three different blood vessels: a radial artery in the right forearm, a radial artery in the index finger of the right hand, and a radial vein in the right forearm. Taking advantage of the handheld probe, our method can potentially be used to monitor blood flow speed in the clinic and at the bedside.

CDC Public Access

R01 EB016963/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States
R01 CA159959/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States
R01 CA186567/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States
S10 RR026922/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States
DP1 EB016986/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States
DP1 EB016986/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States