Oxygen plays a role in many aspects of tumor biology such as metastasis, drug resistance, and angiogenesis. Chaotic vasculature and cell signaling can lead to segments of the tumor that are oxygen-rich while neighboring regions can be severely hypoxic. Previous work has shown that this spatial variation is a dynamic process, but the precise spatio-temporal evolution is poorly understood. Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) is an emerging technique for measuring wide-field maps of absolute concentrations of tissue chromophores. Here we present an SFDI device capable of acquiring hyperspectral (~10 wavelengths) SFDI images at relatively high speeds (0.1 Hz). A Quartz Tungsten Halogen lamp source is used as the input to a Czerny-Turner monochromator. Instead of an exit slit, a digital micromirror device (DMD) is used to select any wavelength within the range of the DMD. The monochromatic beam is directed onto a second DMD which spatially modulates the light incident on the sample. This system is highly flexible and allows for rapid selection and projection of any wavelength from 500-1800 nm. We verified the accuracy and precision of the instrument on a series of tissue mimicking optical phantoms, and collected what we believe to be the first wide-field, time-resolved measurement of the spatio-temporal dynamics of a xenograft breast tumor in a mouse model in vivo. These measurements will further our understanding of tumor oxygen dynamics for use in developing more effective drug treatment schedules, and discovery of novel drug targets.
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