Speckle-illumination spatial frequency domain imaging with a stereo laparoscope for profile-corrected optical...

Laparoscopic surgery presents challenges in localizing oncological margins due to poor contrast between healthy and malignant tissues. Optical properties can uniquely identify various tissue types and disease states with high sensitivity and specificity, making it a promising tool for surgical guidance. Although spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) effectively measures quantitative optical properties, its deployment in laparoscopy is challenging due to the constrained imaging environment. Thus, there is a need for compact structured illumination techniques to enable accurate, quantitative endogenous contrast in minimally invasive surgery.

We introduce a compact, two-camera laparoscope that incorporates both active stereo depth estimation and speckle-illumination SFDI (si-SFDI) to map profile-corrected, pixel-level absorption ( ${\mu }_a$ ), and reduced scattering ( ${\mu }_s^{\text{'}}$ ) optical properties in images of tissues with complex geometries.

We used a multimode fiber-coupled 639-nm laser illumination to generate high-contrast speckle patterns on the object. These patterns were imaged through a modified commercial stereo laparoscope for optical property estimation via si-SFDI. Compared with the original si-SFDI work, which required $\ge 10$ images of randomized speckle patterns for accurate optical property estimations, our approach approximates the DC response using a laser speckle reducer (LSR) and consequently requires only two images. In addition, we demonstrate 3D profilometry using active stereo from low-coherence RGB laser flood illumination. Sample topography was then used to correct for measured intensity variations caused by object height and surface angle differences with respect to a calibration phantom. The low-contrast RGB speckle pattern was blurred using an LSR to approximate incoherent white light illumination. We validated profile-corrected si-SFDI against conventional SFDI in phantoms with simple and complex geometries, as well as in a human finger in vivo time-series constriction study.

Laparoscopic si-SFDI optical property measurements agreed with conventional SFDI measurements when measuring flat tissue phantoms, exhibiting an error of 6.4% for absorption and 5.8% for reduced scattering. Profile-correction improved the accuracy for measurements of phantoms with complex geometries, particularly for absorption, where it reduced the error by 23.7%. An in vivo finger constriction study further validated laparoscopic si-SFDI, demonstrating an error of 8.2% for absorption and 5.8% for reduced scattering compared with conventional SFDI. Moreover, the observed trends in optical properties due to physiological changes were consistent with previous studies.

Our stereo-laparoscopic implementation of si-SFDI provides a simple method to obtain accurate optical property maps through a laparoscope for flat and complex geometries. This has the potential to provide quantitative endogenous contrast for minimally invasive surgical guidance.