  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.
