Accounting for filter bandwidth improves the quantitative accuracy of bioluminescence tomography.

Bioluminescence imaging is a noninvasive technique whereby surface weighted images of luminescent probes within animals are used to characterize cell count and function. Traditionally, data are collected over the entire emission spectrum of the source using no filters and are used to evaluate cell count/function over the entire spectrum. Alternatively, multispectral data over several wavelengths can be incorporated to perform tomographic reconstruction of source location and intensity.