Photoacoustic Computed Tomography (PACT) is a major configuration of photoacoustic imaging, a hybrid noninvasive modality for both functional and molecular imaging. PACT has rapidly gained importance in the field of biomedical imaging due to superior performance as compared to conventional optical imaging counterparts. However, the overall cost of developing a PACT system is one of the challenges towards clinical translation of this novel technique. The cost of a typical commercial PACT system originates from optical source, ultrasound detector, and data acquisition unit. With growing applications of photoacoustic imaging, there is a tremendous demand towards reducing its cost. In this review article, we have discussed various approaches to reduce the overall cost of a PACT system, and provided a cost estimation to build a low-cost PACT system.

光声计算机断层扫描 (PACT) 是光声成像的主要配置，是一种用于功能成像和分子成像的混合非侵入性模式。由于与传统光学成像技术相比具有卓越的性能，PACT 在生物医学成像领域迅速获得了重要地位。然而，开发 PACT 系统的总体成本是这项新技术临床转化的挑战之一。典型的商用 PACT 系统的成本来自光源、超声探测器和数据采集单元。随着光声成像应用的不断增长，降低其成本的需求巨大。在这篇综述文章中，我们讨论了降低 PACT 系统总体成本的各种方法，并提供了构建低成本 PACT 系统的成本估算。