title: Near infrared image processing to quantitate and visualize oxygen saturation during vascular occlusion.
abstract: The assessment of microcirculation spatial heterogeneity on the hand skin is the main objective of this work. Near-infrared spectroscopy based 2D imaging is a non-invasive technique for the assessment of tissue oxygenation. The haemoglobin oxygen saturation images were acquired by a dedicated camera (Kent Imaging) during baseline, ischaemia (brachial artery cuff occlusion) and reperfusion. Acquired images underwent a preliminary restoration process aimed at removing degradations occurring during signal capturing. Then, wavelet transform based multiscale analysis was applied to identify edges by detecting local maxima and minima across successive scales. Segmentation of test areas during different conditions was obtained by thresholding-based region growing approach. The method identifies the differences in microcirculatory control of blood flow in different regions of the hand skin. The obtained results demonstrate the potential use of NIRS images for the clinical evaluation of skin disease and microcirculatory dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione "Alessandro Faedo" CNR, Pisa, Italy. Electronic address: bushra_jalil@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jalil
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione "Alessandro Faedo" CNR, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Salvetti
authors.affiliation: Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni, CNR, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Potì
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica, CNR, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hartwig
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica, CNR, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marinelli
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica, CNR, Pisa, Italy; Istituto di Scienze della Vita, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: L'Abbate
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D001916:Brachial Artery / Q000503:physiopathology; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D007259:Infrared Rays; D007511:Ischemia; D008833:Microcirculation; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010100:Oxygen / Q000737:chemistry*; D010477:Perfusion; D015424:Reperfusion; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D014652:Vascular Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000503:physiopathology; D058067:Wavelet Analysis
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: Edge detection; Multiscale analysis; Near-infrared spectrum; Oxygen saturation; Region growing; Segmentation