System, method and computer program product for screening a spectral image
First Claim
1. A method for screening images of visualizable components in a fluid flowing in a vascular system, the walls of which are substantially transparent to transmitted and reflected light, using a light transmitting device that is capable of transmitting light through the walls of a region of the vascular system into a sub-surface region thereof, an image capturing device capable of capturing images reflected from the sub-surface region of the vascular system illuminated by the light transmitting device to create a spectral image, and a processing unit in communication with the image capturing device, comprising the steps of:
- receiving in the processing unit a reflected spectral image of the subsurface region captured by the image capturing device;
screening said reflected spectral image to determine whether said reflected spectral image passes a screening stage, wherein said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage if at least one of a plurality of properties of said reflected spectral image exceeds a predetermined threshold; and
analyzing said reflected spectral image to measure an optical density of the vascular region to estimate hemoglobin, provided that said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system, method and computer program product is provided for screening and analyzing spectral images of a microcirculatory system to measure blood characteristics, such as hemoglobin concentration. In an embodiment, multi-stage screening is performed on each input image to determine whether the image is suitable for hemoglobin measurement and prediction. During the screening process the following quantities are measured: image intensity, image background intensity variation, image focus condition, image motion blur condition, number of vessels in the image with certain range of diameters, average vessel edge contrast, number of bubble segments in the image and the similarity between two images. The multi-stage screening cycle includes intensity screening, DWT decomposition, focus measurement, motion blur measurement, vessel and bubble detection, and repetition detection. During the screening stages, the image is classified into one of three categories: excellent, mediocre and poor. Only the images with an excellent rating is used for further Hb estimation. But both excellent and mediocre images would launch an autofocusing process provided by focus measurement. In another embodiment, a Fast Fourier transform is used to develop a spectral ratio to detect excellent images. The present invention provides real time hemoglobin prediction on the subject under investigation.
21 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for screening images of visualizable components in a fluid flowing in a vascular system, the walls of which are substantially transparent to transmitted and reflected light, using a light transmitting device that is capable of transmitting light through the walls of a region of the vascular system into a sub-surface region thereof, an image capturing device capable of capturing images reflected from the sub-surface region of the vascular system illuminated by the light transmitting device to create a spectral image, and a processing unit in communication with the image capturing device, comprising the steps of:
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receiving in the processing unit a reflected spectral image of the subsurface region captured by the image capturing device;
screening said reflected spectral image to determine whether said reflected spectral image passes a screening stage, wherein said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage if at least one of a plurality of properties of said reflected spectral image exceeds a predetermined threshold; and
analyzing said reflected spectral image to measure an optical density of the vascular region to estimate hemoglobin, provided that said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. For use with a light transmitting device for transmitting light through a vascular system, and an image capturing device for capturing images from the vascular system illuminated by the light transmitting device to create a spectral image, a processing unit adapted for communication with the image capturing device for analyzing at least one visualizable component in a fluid flowing in the vascular system, the walls of which are substantially transparent to transmitted and reflected light, comprising:
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receiving means for receiving a reflected spectral image of the vascular system captured by said image capturing device;
screening means for screening said reflected spectral image to determine whether said reflected spectral image passes a screening stage, wherein said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage if at least one of a plurality of properties of said reflected spectral image exceeds a predetermined threshold; and
analyzing means for measuring an optical density of the vascular system to estimate hemoglobin.
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20. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer readable program code means embedded in said medium for causing an application program to execute on a computer that analyzes visualizable components in a fluid flowing in a vascular system, the walls of which are substantially transparent to transmitted and reflected light, using a light transmitting device that is capable of transmitting light through the vascular system, and an image capturing device capable of capturing images from the vascular system illuminated by the light transmitting device to create a spectral image, comprising:
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a first computer readable program code means for causing the computer to receive a reflected spectral image of the vascular system captured by the image capturing device;
a second computer readable program code means for causing the computer to screen said reflected spectral image to determine whether said reflected spectral image passes a screening stage, wherein said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage if at least one of a plurality of properties of said reflected spectral image exceeds a predetermined threshold; and
a third computer readable program code means for causing the computer to measure an optical density of the vascular system to estimate hemoglobin, provided that said reflected spectral image passes said screening stage to determine whether at least one of a plurality of properties of said reflected spectral image exceeds a predetermined threshold.
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Specification