Hand-held optical imager (Gen-2): improved instrumentation and target detectability.

Hand-held optical imagers are developed by various researchers towards reflectance-based spectroscopic imaging of breast cancer. Recently, a Gen-1 handheld optical imager was developed with capabilities to perform two-dimensional (2-D) spectroscopic as well as three-dimensional (3-D) tomographic imaging studies. However, the imager was bulky with poor surface contact (~30%) along curved tissues, and limited sensitivity to detect targets consistently.