在过去的十年中，光声成像（PA）由于在各个学术和工业研究团队中在临床前和临床领域取得了成功的实证，因此成为一种备受关注的新兴诊断技术。光声成像的持续增长主要归功于其突出特点，包括非电离辐射、成本效益、易于部署，以及具有足够的轴向、横向和时间分辨率以解决各种组织特征和评估治疗效果。此外，光声成像可以与超声成像系统轻松集成，两者的组合使得能够在结构、功能和分子成像领域中进行各种特征的共注册和交叉参考。光声成像依赖于内源性对比剂（例如血红蛋白）或外源性的对比剂，例如纳米尺寸可调谐的光吸收剂或染料，这些对比剂可以提高图像对比度，超越内源性来源所提供的图像对比度。在本综述中，我们讨论了光声成像在内源性对比剂方面的应用，以其在临床相关领域中的应用为重点，包括组织特征化、癌症诊断/治疗（称为治疗诊断学）、心血管应用和外科应用。我们相信，随着越来越多的研究实验室和临床采用光声成像技术，光声成像作为多种与疾病相关状态的便捷指标的作用将继续扩大和发展。© 2023 Elsevier GmbH出版。

In the past decade, photoacoustic (PA) imaging has attracted a great deal of popularity as an emergent diagnostic technology owing to its successful demonstration in both preclinical and clinical arenas by various academic and industrial research groups. Such steady growth of PA imaging can mainly be attributed to its salient features, including being non-ionizing, cost-effective, easily deployable, and having sufficient axial, lateral, and temporal resolutions for resolving various tissue characteristics and assessing the therapeutic efficacy. In addition, PA imaging can easily be integrated with the ultrasound imaging systems, the combination of which confers the ability to co-register and cross-reference various features in the structural, functional, and molecular imaging regimes. PA imaging relies on either an endogenous source of contrast (e.g., hemoglobin) or those of an exogenous nature such as nano-sized tunable optical absorbers or dyes that may boost imaging contrast beyond that provided by the endogenous sources. In this review, we discuss the applications of PA imaging with endogenous contrast as they pertain to clinically relevant niches, including tissue characterization, cancer diagnostics/therapies (termed as theranostics), cardiovascular applications, and surgical applications. We believe that PA imaging's role as a facile indicator of several disease-relevant states will continue to expand and evolve as it is adopted by an increasing number of research laboratories and clinics worldwide.© 2023 Published by Elsevier GmbH.