Modeling changes in the hemoglobin concentration of skin with total diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Spectroscopy
• Personalized Medicine

Background:

• Real-time hemoglobin monitoring is crucial for personalized patient care.
• Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is common but has calibration and analysis challenges.
• Current log-inverse-reflectance (LIR) analysis fails when non-hemoglobin chromophores change.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address challenges in collecting diffuse reflectance spectra using an integrating sphere (IS).
• To propose a novel model for retrieving relative hemoglobin concentration changes from visible light spectra.
• To develop a model that accounts for concurrent changes in non-hemoglobin chromophores.

Main Methods:

• Characterization of the proposed model using theoretical spectra and liquid phantoms.
• Application of the model to temporal measurements from human skin.
• Comparison of the new model with traditional LIR analysis.

Main Results:

• The proposed model successfully retrieves relative hemoglobin concentration changes.
• The model demonstrates robustness by accounting for non-hemoglobin chromophore variations.
• Comparative analysis validated the model's performance against LIR on human skin data.

Conclusions:

• The developed model offers a more accurate method for real-time hemoglobin monitoring in skin.
• This advancement can enhance the reliability of spectral analysis for patient care.
• Overcoming IS collection challenges enables more sophisticated spectroscopic analysis.