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Food-Grade Activated Charcoal for Contrast-Enhanced Photoacoustic Imaging of Aspiration: A Phantom Study

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Abstract

Aspiration pneumonia has the highest attributable mortality of all medical complications post-stroke, or in individuals with progressive neurological diseases. For optimum health outcomes for individuals with dysphagia, a non-invasive and convenient method for objectively detecting aspiration is needed. This study introduces a potential new aspiration screening method based on photoacoustic imaging (PAI), a medical imaging technology that measures the optical contrast of tissue rather than mechanical or elastic properties. In this preliminary study, a tissue-mimicking neck phantom was designed to test the performance of PAI for aspiration screening with a charcoal solution as a contrast agent. A 1064 nm wavelength light source was illuminated on the anterior of the neck phantom to induce the photoacoustic effect. The resulting photoacoustic signal of the charcoal contrast in the mock trachea was detected by a linear transducer array with a 2.25 MHz central ultrasound frequency. The phantom results showed that charcoal solution at 10 mg/ml exhibited strong photoacoustic signals when flowing into the phantom trachea. By overlaying the photoacoustic signals of the charcoal contrast on top of the ultrasound image, we were able to simultaneously visualize the movement of food contrast and a cross-section of tissue structures during mock swallowing. Moreover, we confirmed the ability to detect the flow of charcoal contrast at a small bolus volume of ~ 7 μl through the phantom, suggesting high sensitivity to detect small aspiration events. The study suggests that PAI holds promise to be developed as an aspiration detection tool with charcoal powder as a contrast agent.

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Funding

This work was supported in part by National Institute of Health under Grant R01EB029596 and Grant R01EB028978.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Huijuan Zhang, Corrin Bowman, Alexander Hu, Jonathan Lovell & Jun Xia

  2. Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14214, USA

    Ahmed Nagy

  3. E.N.T. Department Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Faiyum, Egypt

    Ahmed Nagy

  4. KITE Research Institute, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network, Toronto, ON, M5G 2A2, Canada

    Melanie Peladeau-Pigeon & Catriona M. Steele

  5. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

    Alexander Hu

  6. Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A1, Canada

    Catriona M. Steele

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  1. Huijuan Zhang
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Correspondence to Jun Xia.

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The authors report no conflicts of interest related to this study. Dr. Jun Xia is the founder of Sonioptix, LLC, which, however, did not support this work.

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Zhang, H., Nagy, A., Bowman, C. et al. Food-Grade Activated Charcoal for Contrast-Enhanced Photoacoustic Imaging of Aspiration: A Phantom Study. Dysphagia 37, 1651–1661 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00455-022-10422-8

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