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Updated: Oct 24, 2025
Real-Time Monitoring of Neurocritical Patients with Diffuse Optical Spectroscopies
Published on: November 19, 2020
Multi-modal diffuse optical spectroscopy for high-speed monitoring and wide-area mapping of tissue optical properties
Jesse Lam1,2, Brian Hill3, Timothy Quang3
1Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, Univ. of California, Irvine, United States.
Significance:
Diffuse optical spectroscopic imaging (DOSI) is a versatile technology sensitive to changes in tissue composition and hemodynamics and has been used for a wide variety of clinical applications. Specific applications have prompted the development of versions of the DOSI technology to fit specific clinical needs. This work describes the development and characterization of a multi-modal DOSI (MM-DOSI) system that can acquire metabolic, compositional, and pulsatile information at multiple penetration depths in a single hardware platform. Additionally, a 3D tracking system is integrated with MM-DOSI, which enables registration of the acquired data to the physical imaging area.
Aim:
We demonstrate imaging, layered compositional analysis, and metabolism tracking capabilities using a single MM-DOSI system on optical phantoms as well as in vivo human tissue.
Approach:
We characterize system performance with a silicone phantom containing an embedded object. To demonstrate multi-layer sensitivity, we imaged human calf tissue with a 4.8-mm skin-adipose thickness. Human thenar tissue was also measured using a combined broadband DOSI and continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy method (∼15 Hz acquisition rate).
Results:
High-resolution optical property maps of absorption (μa) and reduced scattering (μs ' ) were recovered on the phantom by capturing over 1000 measurement points in under 5 minutes. On human calf tissue, we show two probing depth layers have significantly different (p < 0.001) total-hemo/myoglobin and μs ' composition. On thenar tissue, we calculate tissue arterial oxygen saturation, venous oxygen saturation, and tissue metabolic rate of oxygen consumption during baseline and after release of an arterial occlusion.
Conclusions:
The MM-DOSI can switch between collection of broadband spectra, high-resolution images, or multi-depth hemodynamics without any hardware reconfiguration. We conclude that MM-DOSI enables acquisition of high resolution, multi-modal data consolidated in a single platform, which can provide a more comprehensive understanding of tissue hemodynamics and composition for a wide range of clinical applications.
