Electronical circuit design and application of a clinical breast diffuse optical tomography system

Objective: Several different imaging techniques have been used for early diagnosis of breast cancer. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron-emission tomography (PET) and ultrasound imaging are some of them. Most often used technique is mammography. The mammography technique has some disadvantages as having high cost and not being able to differentiate some types of tumors. In recent years, diffuse optical tomography (DOT) systems that use near infrared light that are not harmful to tissue and can generate images by examining the response of the tissue to the light, have been put into use. In this theses, circuit design and implemention of a clinical DOT system have been targeted. Method: In this study, in order to obtain the necessary data for a Diffuse Optical Tomography system to generate an image, and electronical hardware system, a microcontroller firmware, and a computer software which controls the hardware and conveys obtained raw imaging data to computer environment have been developed and implemented by taking advantages of the new circuit components and software development tools presented by developing technologies. Microcontroller software was developed in Rowley Crossworks development environment and computer software was developed in Visual Studio development environment by using C# language. Results: System performance of the developed microcontroller based hardware, the code that runs in the microcontroller and the C# based computer program, have been examined under simulated working conditions. Conclusion: Arm cortex M3 based hardware system and it's firmware implemented. The system tested with an optical switching device. Electrical performance measurements of the system was carried out and raw imaging data files obtained.