Error consideration in contrast-enhanced three-dimensional optical tomography

We present three-dimensional tomographic images of the absorption coefficie nt that is due to the presence of a fluorophore reconstructed from frequenc y domain fluence measurements of a tissue phantom containing a single, fluo rescence contrast-enhanced inclusion. We show that such a reconstruction ma y be improved when the importance of measurement error correlations between relative phase shift and amplitude is assessed and when measurements are p reprocessed to reduce the magnitude and the bias of system error. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.