Hyperspectral imaging and diagnosis of intestinal ischemia.

Intestinal ischemia results from a variety of disorders that cause insufficient blood flow to the intestine. The type and prognosis of ischemic injury depends on the blood vessels involved, the underlying medical condition, and the swiftness with which the problem is brought to medical attention for diagnosis and treatment. Hyperspectral imaging has developed as a compact imaging and spectroscopic tool that can he used for different applications including medical diagnostics. In this paper, the application of hyperspectral imaging as a visual supporting tool to detect the intestinal ischemia during surgeries is evaluated. It will he useful for rapid diagnosing tissue abnormalities. The images are captured using an infrared hyperspectral camera (900-1700m). Using hyperspectral images, the spectral signatures for normal intestine, clamped ischemic intestine and other abdominal organs are created. The high-dimensional data are compressed using wavelet transform and classified using support vector machine (SVM). The performance of this method is evaluated for detection of ischemic intestine in an abdominal surgery on a pig. The criteria to evaluate performance are based on false negative rate (FNR) and false positive rate (FPR). This technique is able to detect ischemic intestine with a small FPR and FNR.