Static laser speckle contrast analysis for noninvasive burn diagnosis using a camera-phone imager

Laser speckle contrast analysis (LASCA) is an established optical technique for accurate widefield visualization of relative blood perfusion when no or minimal scattering from static tissue elements is present, as demonstrated, for example, in LASCA imaging of the exposed cortex. However, when LASCA is applied to diagnosis of burn wounds, light is backscattered from both moving blood and static burn scatterers, and thus the spatial speckle contrast includes both perfusion and nonperfusion components and cannot be straightforwardly associated to blood flow. We extract from speckle contrast images of burn wounds the nonperfusion (static) component and discover that it conveys useful information on the ratio of static-to-dynamic scattering composition of the wound, enabling identification of burns of different depth in a porcine model in vivo within the first 48 h postburn. Our findings suggest that relative changes in the static-to-dynamic scattering composition of burns can dominate relative changes in blood flow for burns of different severity. Unlike conventional LASCA systems that employ scientific or industrial-grade cameras, our LASCA system is realized here using a camera phone, showing the potential to enable LASCA-based burn diagnosis with a simple imager.