Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

PML Priority: Advanced Photonics for Health Care

fluorescing cells
Photonics plays a major role in the quality of America's health care. In the clinic, it is used in screening, diagnosis, and treatment of disease in procedures such as mammography, x-ray computed tomography (CT) for cancer, trauma or cardiac screening, optical coherence tomography for retinal scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the diagnosis of soft-tissue damage. In laboratory testing and biomedical research, photonics is used in gene sequencers and flow cytometry, among other applications. The prevalence of photonics in these areas has led to the use of the word biophotonics.

However, lack of measurement standards in medical imaging has impeded quality, hindered comparability of results from different imaging systems at different times, affected the incidence of false positives, and raised safety concerns about exposing patients to excess dosages of ionizing radiation. A recent GAO report highlights the important role of phantoms for calibration and measurement of system performance; notes that their use enables quantitative and comparable imaging; and allows practitioners to select a measurement protocol that achieves the required contrast at the lowest procedure cost and lowest level of radiation exposure.

In addition, the National Photonics Initiative has emphasized the need for NIST, industry, and academia to collaborate and

work together to prioritize the commercial development of imaging standards for both acquisition and storage, as well as new software methods automating the extraction, quantification, and identification of regions of interest in large, 2D and 3D data sets to optimize the utility of new and emerging imaging instrumentation.

In response to the needs highlighted above, NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory plans to undertake the following:

  • Apply NIST-developed photonics technology to the realization of new imaging methods, including multi-modal approaches, to improve disease detection and treatment, including reduction of time and cost.
  • Develop and disseminate standards and standard methods to improve the accuracy and comparability of advanced imaging technology.
  • Create test artifacts that more authentically simulate human tissues and subjects to reduce the time and costs of regulatory acceptance of medical imaging innovations

Specific goals include:

  • NIST-developed photonics technology applied to the realization of new imaging methods, including multi-modal approaches, to improve detection and treatment and reduce time and cost.
  • Developed and disseminated standards and methods to improve the accuracy and comparability of advanced imaging technology used in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.
  • Artifacts that more authentically simulate human tissues and subjects to reduce the time and costs of regulatory acceptance of medical imaging innovations developed by the private sector.
  • NIST next-generation, multi-dimensional imaging technology translated to optical medical imaging applications to allow accurate spatial and density mapping of hard and soft tissues for cancer detection and localization, and accurate in vivo dimensional measurements of hard tissue structures needing replacement.
  • Robust phantoms to enable the accurate quantification of dosage, contrast, resolution, and dimensional accuracy.
Created August 3, 2015, Updated June 2, 2021