Near infrared image processing to quantitate and visualize oxygen saturation during vascular occlusion

Area of Science:

• Biomedical optics
• Medical imaging
• Physiology

Background:

• Assessing microcirculation spatial heterogeneity in hand skin is crucial for understanding tissue oxygenation.
• Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers a non-invasive method for evaluating tissue oxygenation.
• Existing methods may lack the resolution to capture fine details of microcirculatory changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess microcirculation spatial heterogeneity on the hand skin using NIRS-based 2D imaging.
• To develop and validate a method for analyzing NIRS images to identify regional differences in blood flow control.
• To explore the clinical potential of NIRS imaging in evaluating skin disease and microcirculatory dysfunction.

Main Methods:

• Acquisition of hemoglobin oxygen saturation images using a dedicated NIRS camera during baseline, ischemia, and reperfusion.
• Application of wavelet transform-based multiscale analysis for edge detection in NIRS images.
• Segmentation of hand skin regions using a thresholding-based region growing approach.

Main Results:

• The study successfully acquired and processed NIRS images to visualize hemoglobin oxygen saturation.
• Wavelet transform and region growing effectively segmented different areas of the hand skin under various conditions.
• The analysis revealed differences in microcirculatory control of blood flow across different hand skin regions.

Conclusions:

• NIRS-based 2D imaging is a viable non-invasive technique for assessing microcirculation spatial heterogeneity.
• The developed image analysis methods can differentiate regional microcirculatory responses.
• NIRS imaging holds promise for the clinical evaluation of skin conditions and microcirculatory impairments.