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Updated: Aug 12, 2025
Non-invasive Optical Measurement of Cerebral Metabolism and Hemodynamics in Infants
Published on: March 14, 2013
Handheld diffuse reflectance spectroscopy system for noninvasive quantification of neonatal bilirubin and hemoglobin
Nan-Yu Cheng1,2,3, Shih-Yu Tzeng1,3, Ming-Chein Fang1
1Department of Photonics, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan City 701, Taiwan.
Abstract:
The prevalence rate of neonatal jaundice can reach 80%, of which 5% may develop dangerous hemolytic jaundice. The blood test for obtaining bilirubin and hemoglobin concentration is the gold standard for diagnosing hemolytic jaundice; however, frequently drawing blood from jaundice neonates for the screening purpose is not practical. We have developed a handheld diffuse reflectance spectroscopy system to noninvasively determine the bilirubin and hemoglobin levels in neonates. Our study showed that the correlation coefficients were 0.95 and 0.80 for bilirubin and hemoglobin between the results from the blood tests and our handheld system, respectively. This handheld system could be an effective tool for screening hemolytic jaundice.
