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Published on: August 19, 2020
Localization of Deep Ischemia and Hemorrhage in Preterm Infants' Head with Near-Infrared Optical Tomography: A
Jingjing Jiang1, Aldo Di Costanzo Mata2, Scott Lindner2
1Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory (BORL), Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zürich and University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland. Jingjing.Jiang@usz.ch.
Insights
This study shows that time-domain near-infrared optical tomography (TD NIROT) can accurately image brain injuries like ischemia and hemorrhage in preterm infants. The system successfully located small lesions even with added noise, aiding early diagnosis.
Area of Science:
- Medical Imaging
- Biomedical Optics
- Neonatal Neurology
Background:
- Preterm infants are at high risk for brain lesions, potentially causing long-term disabilities.
- Early detection of cerebral ischemia and hemorrhage is crucial for timely intervention and neuroprotection.
- A novel time-domain near-infrared optical tomography (TD NIROT) system has been developed for diagnosing neonatal brain injury.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the image quality of the TD NIROT system for neonatal brain injury diagnosis.
- To assess the system's performance in detecting simulated ischemia and hemorrhage under noisy conditions.
- To determine the system's ability to accurately localize and segment brain lesions.
Main Methods:
- Simulations were performed on a 60 mm diameter spherical neonatal head model.
- Spherical inclusions mimicking ischemia and hemorrhage were placed at varying depths (10-30 mm).
- TD NIROT data were generated with 208 detectors and 18 sources, with up to 5% Gaussian noise added. 3D images were reconstructed using modified Tikhonov minimization.
Main Results:
- Inclusions were accurately localized with positional errors below 1 mm.
- High Dice similarity was achieved between segmented images and ground truth for both ischemia and hemorrhage.
- The system demonstrated robustness to noise, particularly in the high-contrast hemorrhage cases, even for 1 mm inclusions.
Conclusions:
- The TD NIROT system provides sufficient data for accurate hemorrhage and ischemia localization in the neonatal brain.
- The developed system shows promise for early diagnosis and management of brain injuries in preterm infants.
- The study validates the potential of TD NIROT for improving neuroimaging in neonates.
Background And Aim:
Preterm infants have a high incidence of brain lesions that may lead to long-term disabilities. Early diagnosis of cerebral ischemia and hemorrhage may enable protection of the brain by prevention or neuroprotective treatment. Our recently developed time-domain near-infrared optical tomography (TD NIROT) system provides images to diagnose neonatal brain injury. Our aim is to study the image quality achievable from the TD NIROT signals perturbed by noise for two common cases: ischemia and hemorrhage.
Methods:
We implemented simulations on a spherical model of diameter 60 mm representing a typical neonatal head where the absorption μa = 0.08 cm-1 and the reduced scattering μ's = 4.1 cm-1. Injury-mimicking spherical inclusions of various diameters (1 ~ 10 mm) were placed at depths of 10 ~ 20 mm in the ischemia case (2.5 × μa) and 14 ~ 30 mm for the hemorrhage case (50 × μa). TD data were generated from a large number of source-detector pairs, i.e., 208 detectors placed within a circle of diameter 40 mm on the surface surrounded by 18 sources. Up to 5% Gaussian noise was added in the simulations. 3D images were reconstructed with the modified Tikhonov minimization with the initial guess of a homogeneous phantom, and the images were evaluated by positional error and Dice similarity.
Results:
The inclusions were localized correctly with low positional errors (<1 mm), and the segmented images share a high Dice similarity with the ground truth for both the ischemia and the hemorrhage case, even for tiny inclusions of 1 mm in deep tissue. The hemorrhage case with a high contrast tolerates a substantial level of noise even though the performance drops with higher noise as expected.
Conclusions:
The large amount of data provided by our novel TD NIROT system provides rich enough information for correctly locating hemorrhage and ischemia in the neonatal brain.
