System, method and apparatus for the detection of patient-borne fluorescing nanocrystals
First Claim
1. A system for detecting fluorescing nanocrystal tracers at the body of a patient, such nanocrystals being responsive to wavelength defined excitation energy to fluoresce at one or more detection wavelengths, comprising:
- a probe having a working portion with a forward transmission surface, a photo-detector having a detector output corresponding with non-imaged impinging fluorescent radiation when enabled, mounted in adjacency with said surface, a longpass filter operatively associated with the photo-detector and one or more excitation components energizable to provide said excitation energy forwardly of said transmission surface, and a support for supporting said working portion; and
a control assembly, responsive in an initialization mode to derive and store a reference value not operationally associated with said tracer, responsive in a range mode to energize said excitation components under predetermined modulation and enable the photo-detector while the transmission surface is adjacent tissue representing background to derive and store a mean squelch intensity level corresponding with said detection wavelengths and, when in a scan mode wherein said transmission surface is moved in adjacency with tissue suspected of being neoplastic, to energize the excitation components under predetermined modulation and enable the photo-detector to derive the detector output corresponding with said detection wavelengths with intensity levels minus said reference value as a corrected detector output, and responsive to provide a humanly perceptible cue when said corrected detector output represents an intensity level statistically significantly above said mean squelch intensity level.
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Accused Products
Abstract
System, method and apparatus wherein a probe employing non-imagining optics is utilized in conjunction with a fluorescing nanocrystal tracer at the body of a patient. Excitation components within the probe working end are utilized to excite the nanocrystals to fluoresce at wavelengths in the near infrared region, such fluorescent energy is homogenized by interacting with involved tissue to provide a uniform fluorescing intensity over the surface of a photo-detector. Initialization and background determination procedures are described along with a technique for determining statistically significant levels of fluorescing activity.
9 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A system for detecting fluorescing nanocrystal tracers at the body of a patient, such nanocrystals being responsive to wavelength defined excitation energy to fluoresce at one or more detection wavelengths, comprising:
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a probe having a working portion with a forward transmission surface, a photo-detector having a detector output corresponding with non-imaged impinging fluorescent radiation when enabled, mounted in adjacency with said surface, a longpass filter operatively associated with the photo-detector and one or more excitation components energizable to provide said excitation energy forwardly of said transmission surface, and a support for supporting said working portion; and a control assembly, responsive in an initialization mode to derive and store a reference value not operationally associated with said tracer, responsive in a range mode to energize said excitation components under predetermined modulation and enable the photo-detector while the transmission surface is adjacent tissue representing background to derive and store a mean squelch intensity level corresponding with said detection wavelengths and, when in a scan mode wherein said transmission surface is moved in adjacency with tissue suspected of being neoplastic, to energize the excitation components under predetermined modulation and enable the photo-detector to derive the detector output corresponding with said detection wavelengths with intensity levels minus said reference value as a corrected detector output, and responsive to provide a humanly perceptible cue when said corrected detector output represents an intensity level statistically significantly above said mean squelch intensity level. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification