Microelectromechanical systems scanning-mirrorbased handheld probe for fluorescence molecular tomography

A novel handheld probe based on a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) scanning mirror for three-dimensional (3D) fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) is described. The miniaturized probe consists of a MEMS mirror for delivering an excitation light beam to multiple preselected points at the tissue surface and an optical fiber array for collecting the fluorescent emission light from the tissue. Several phantom experiments based on indocyanine green, an FDA approved near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye, were conducted to assess the imaging ability of this device. Tumor-bearing mice with systematically injected tumor-targeted NIR fluorescent probes were scanned to further demonstrate the ability of this MEMS-based FMT for imaging small animals.