Abstract: Recent developments in the production of ultra-short laser pulses and fast detectors have led to the advent of transillumination imaging (TI) as a clinical technique based on the propagation of light through a turbid (randomly scattering and absorbing) medium such as soft tissue. Interest in NIR breast imaging has been driven by certain recognized shortcomings in x-ray mammography such as low positive predictive value and an estimated 0.2% increase in breast cancers incidence attributed to x-ray. In this talk experimental techniques in TI and their underlying theoretical basis will be outlined with an emphasis on time-resolved systems. A single photon detection technique has recently been proposed and theoretically evaluated by Behin-Ain et al. The results, as applied to both homogeneous and heterogeneous media with embedded inhomogeneities will be discussed.

Resume:  Setayesh Behin-Ain completed his honours in high-energy particle physics at Sydney University where he finished a project on scintillation detectors. He then did his MSc in Mathematics working on C^*-algebras in Quantum Mechanics. He came to Adelaide to pursue a PhD in theoretical physics. However, he was subsequently attracted to medical physics. This lead to undertaking a PhD in transillumination imaging supervised by Prof. Tim van Doorn (RAH/Adel. Uni).  He is now a Research Medical Scientist at the QEH.