showing 47 related works from this author
Lasers for in-vivo skin diagnostics: some recent developments
2019
The recent advancements of three laser-based diagnostic technologies developed at the Riga group are briefly reviewed: (i) RGB imaging of cw-laser excited skin autofluorescence intensity and photobleaching rate distributions, (ii) ps-laser excited skin autofluorescence and diffuse reflectance kinetics analysis, (iii) snapshot RGB skin chromophore mapping under triple-laser illumination. These techniques have passed preliminary laboratory and clinical tests which have demonstrated a promising potential for further implementation in portable devices for routine clinical applications. Operation principles, set-up schemes and some clinical results obtained by the above-mentioned techniques are …
Monitoring soft tissue coagulation by optical spectroscopy
2017
Laser tissue welding (LTW) or laser tissue soldering (LTS) is investigated since many years for treatment of incisions, wound closure and anastomosis of vessels [1, 2]. Depending on the process, a certain temperature in the range between 65 °C to 85 °C must be reached and held for a few seconds. Care has to be taken not to overheat the tissue, otherwise necrosis or tissue carbonization may occur and will impair wound healing. Usually the temperature is monitored during the process to control the laser power [3]. This requires either bulky equipment or expensive and fragile infrared fibers to feed the temperature signal to an infrared detector. Alternatively, changes in tissue morphology can…
Time of flight for photon in human skin
2016
The time of flight for photons in human skin was measured using picosecond diode laser. Two different wavelength lasers were used - 405 nm and 510 nm. A difference for time of flight in normal skin and in nevus was observed as well as a difference for different wavelength laser irradiation was observed. For 405 nm laser irradiation the difference was 41 ps while comparison of time of flights skin and nevi using 510 nm irradiation showed a result of 32 ps. Results allow to conclude that the time photon travels in skin might depend on the characteristics of the medium and wavelength of the irradiation. This can be related to known data for light penetration depth in human skin for different w…
Combined multi-wavelength laser speckle contrast imaging and diffuse reflectance imaging for skin perfusion assessment
2019
Abstract Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging (LSCI) is a powerful low-cost method for visualization of flow, microcirculation and blood perfusion. Due to the fact that diseased and healthy tissues has different blood perfusion, LSCI can be a perspective tool for cancer diagnostics and discrimination between different types of tissues. Previously, multispectral diffuse reflectance imaging method for melanoma diagnostics has been introduced. In this work, multi-wavelength (532-, 655- and 850- nm) LSCI technique combined with hyperspectral camera and diffuse reflectance imaging method will be used for assessment of tissues with different skin perfusion properties. An in vivo experiment with occlusi…
Novel laser technologies for human skin in-vivo assessment
2007
Two experimental methodologies for human skin optical non-invasive in-vivo assessment have been developed and clinically tested - imaging of the laser-excited autofluorescence fading rate, and simultaneous recording of the reflectance photoplethysmography signals at several laser wavelengths with different skin penetration depths. Details of both equipments are described along with some measurement results illustrating feasibility of the novel technologies.
Challenges of automatic processing of large amount of skin lesion multispectral data
2020
This work will describe the challenges involved in setting up automatic processing for a large differentiated data set. In this study, a multispectral (skin diffuse reflection images using 526nm (green), 663nm (red), and 964nm (infrared) illumination and autofluorescence (AF) image using 405 nm excitation) data set with 756 lesions (3024 images) was processed. Previously, using MATLAB software, finding markers, correctly segmenting images with dark edges and image alignment were the main causes of the problems in automatic data processing. To improve automatic processing and eliminate the use of licensed software, the latter was substituted with the open source Python environment. For more …
Image quality enhancement for skin cancer optical diagnostics
2017
The research presents image quality analysis and enhancement proposals in biophotonic area. The sources of image problems are reviewed and analyzed. The problems with most impact in biophotonic area are analyzed in terms of specific biophotonic task – skin cancer diagnostics. The results point out that main problem for skin cancer analysis is the skin illumination problems. Since it is often not possible to prevent illumination problems, the paper proposes image post processing algorithm – low frequency filtering. Practical results show diagnostic results improvement after using proposed filter. Along that, filter do not reduces diagnostic results’ quality for images without illumination de…
Identification of the most informative wavelengths for non-invasive melanoma diagnostics in spectral region from 450 to 950 nm
2020
In this study 300 skin lesion (including 32 skin melanomas) multispectral data cubes were analyzed. The multi-step and single step machine learning approaches were analyzed to find the wavebands that provide the most information that helps discriminate skin melanoma from other benign pigmented lesions. The multi-step machine learning approach assumed training several models but proved itself to be ineffective. The reason for that is a necessity to train a segmentation model on a very small dataset and utilization of standard machine learning classifier which have shown poor classification performance. The single-step approach is based on a deep learning neural network. We have conducted 260…
Spectral imaging as a tool for the evaluation of skin cancer post-operative scars
2020
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the USA and worldwide.1 An early diagnosis is the key to a successful treatment. Among the skin cancers, the malignant melanoma (MM) accounts for 1% of the cases while it is responsible for the majority of deaths. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common form of skin cancer with a very low mortality rate.2 Unfortunately, skin cancer recurrence is a common problem for MM and BCC patients. We propose a post-operative scar screening with non-invasive autofluorescence (AF) imaging to detect an early growth of any residual tissue from the cancer removal procedure. The screening images can serve also as a visual evidence for the post-op patien…
Simultaneous detection of tissue autofluorescence decay distribution and time-gated photo-bleaching rates
2015
ABSTRACT Experimental methodology for parallel measurements of in-vivo skin autofluorescence (AF) lifetimes and photo-bleaching dynamic has been developed and tested. The AF lifetime decay distributio ns were periodically collected from fixed tissue area with subsequent detection of the fluorescence intensity decrease dynamic at different time gates after the pulse excitation. Temporal distributions of human in-vivo skin AF lifetimes and bleaching kinetics were collected and analyzed by means of commercial time-corr elated single photon counting system. Keywords: TCSPC, skin autofluoresc ence, and photo-bleaching. 1. INTRODUCTION Laser induced time-resolved autofluorescence (AF) spectroscop…
Optical design improvement for noncontact skin cancer diagnostic device
2018
Multispectral diffuse reflectance imaging and autofluorescence photo-bleaching imaging are methods that have been investigated for use in skin disorder diagnostics. In response to the ever-increasing incidence of skin cancer in light skinned populations a new device has been designed incorporating both of these methods. The aim of the study was to create a device that is most efficient in terms of hardware and software parameters for the screening of malignant and benign skin lesions. A set of 525 nm, 630 nm and 980 nm LEDs were used to illuminate the skin area at three wavelengths [1] and a set of 405 nm LEDs were used to induce the skin autofluorescence [2]. For a more homogenous illumina…
A method for skin malformation classification by combining multispectral and skin autofluorescence imaging
2018
As the incidence of skin cancer is still increasing worldwide, there is a high demand for early, non-invasive and inexpensive skin lesion diagnostics. In this article we describe and combine two skin imaging methods: skin autofluorescence (AF) and multispectral criterion p’. To develop this method, we used custom made prototype with 405 nm, 526 nm, 663 nm and 964 nm LED illuminations, perpendicular positioned linear polarizers, 515 nm filter and IDS camera. Our aim is to develop a skin lesion diagnostic device for primary care physicians who do not have experience in dermatology or skin oncology. In this study we included such common benign lesion groups as seborrheic keratosis, hyperkerato…
Use of machine learning approaches to improve non-invasive skin melanoma diagnostic method in spectral range 450 - 950nm
2020
Non-invasive skin cancer diagnostic methods develop rapidly thanks to Deep Learning and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). Currently, two types of diagnostics are popular: (a) using single image taken under white illumination and (b) using multiple images taken in narrow spectral bands. The first method is easier to implement, but it is limited in accuracy. The second method is more sensitive, because it is possible to use illumination considering the absorption bands of the skin chromophores and the optical properties of the skin. Currently CNN use a single white light image, due to the availability of large datasets with lesion images. Since CNN processing and analysis requires a large …
Semi-automated non-invasive diagnostics method for melanoma differentiation from nevi and pigmented basal cell carcinomas
2017
The incidence of skin cancer is still increasing mostly in in industrialized countries with light- skinned people. Late tumour detection is the main reason of the high mortality associated with skin cancer. The accessibility of early diagnostics of skin cancer in Latvia is limited by several factors, such as high cost of dermatology services, long queues on state funded oncologist examinations, as well as inaccessibility of oncologists in the countryside regions - this is an actual clinical problem. The new strategies and guidelines for skin cancer early detection and post-surgical follow-up intend to realize the full body examination (FBE) by primary care physicians (general practitioners,…
Photobleaching effects onin vivoskin autofluorescence lifetime
2015
The autofluorescence lifetime of healthy human skin was measured using excitation provided by a picosecond diode laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm and with fluorescence emission collected at 475 and 560 nm. In addition, spectral and temporal responses of healthy human skin and intradermal nevus in the spectral range 460 to 610 nm were studied before and after photobleaching. A decrease in the autofluorescences lifetimes changes was observed after photobleaching of human skin. A three-exponential model was used to fit the signals, and under this model, the most significant photoinduced changes were observed for the slowest lifetime component in healthy skin at the spectral range 520 …
Autofluorescence Imaging of the Skin Is an Objective Non-Invasive Technique for Diagnosing Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum
2021
Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a rare multisystemic autosomal recessive connective tissue disease. In most cases, skin manifestations of PXE are the first to develop, followed later by severe ocular and cardiovascular complications. In our present study, in addition to dermoscopy, we introduced novel techniques, autofluorescence (AF) and diffuse reflectance (DR) imaging for the assessment of affected skin sites of five PXE patients. PXE-affected skin areas in most skin sites showed a previously observed pattern upon dermoscopic examination. With the novel imaging, PXE-affected skin lesions displayed high AF intensity. During our measurements, significantly higher mean, minimum and maximu…
Influence of low power CW laser irradiation on skin hemoglobin changes
2012
Influence of low power laser irradiance on healthy skin using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and multispectral imaging was studied. Changes of diffuse reflectance spectra in spectral range from 500 to 600 nm were observed after 405 nm, 473 nm and 532 nm laser provocation, leading to conclusion that the content of skin hemoglobin has changed. Peaks in spectral absorbance (optical density) curves corresponded to well-known oxy-hemoglobin absorbance peaks at 542 and 577 nm.
Imaging of Laser-Excited Autofluorescence Fading Rates: Novel Technique for Tissue Surface Structure Studies
2008
Experimental methodology for imaging of laser-excited tissue autofluorescence fading rates has been developed and clinically tested. Details of the equipment and image processing are described, along with measurement results confirming feasibility of the novel technology.
089 Autofluorescence imaging for non-invasive visualization and quantification of skin lesions of patients with pseudoxanthoma elasticum
2021
Imaging of LED-excited autofluorescence photobleaching rates for skin diagnostics
2019
The aim of this study is to develop a novel non-invasive approach for skin cancer (melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas) diagnostics by mapping the AF intensity decrease (photo-bleaching) rates under continuous 405 nm LED excitation. For parametric mapping of skin AF intensity decrease rates a sequence of filtered AF imaging under 405 nm LED excitation for 20 seconds at a power density of ~7 mW/cm2 with a frame rate 0.5 fps was recorded and analyzed by cloud-based prototype device. Several clinical cases and potential future applications of the proposed autofluorescence photobleaching rate imaging technique are discussed.
Visualization of Keratin with Diffuse Reflectance and Autofluorescence Imaging and Nonlinear Optical Microscopy in a Rare Keratinopathic Ichthyosis.
2021
Keratins are one of the main fluorophores of the skin. Keratinization disorders can lead to alterations in the optical properties of the skin. We set out to investigate a rare form of keratinopathic ichthyosis caused by KRT1 mutation with two different optical imaging methods. We used a newly developed light emitting diode (LED) based device to analyze autofluorescence signal at 405 nm excitation and diffuse reflectance at 526 nm in vivo. Mean autofluorescence intensity of the hyperkeratotic palmar skin was markedly higher in comparison to the healthy control (162.35 vs. 51.14). To further assess the skin status, we examined samples from affected skin areas ex vivo by nonlinear optical micr…
Laser speckle imaging for early detection of microbial colony forming units
2021
In this study, an optical contactless laser speckle imaging technique for the early identification of bacterial colony-forming units was tested. The aim of this work is to compare the laser speckle imaging method for the early assessment of microbial activity with standard visual inspection under white light illumination. In presented research, the growth of Vibrio natriegens bacterial colonies on the solid medium was observed and analyzed. Both – visual examination under white light illumination and laser speckle correlation analysis were performed. Based on various experiments and comparisons with the theoretical Gompertz model, colony radius growth curves were obtained. It was shown that…
Riga Group’s recent results on laser applications for skin diagnostics
2021
Abstract The laser-related activities are reviewed of the Biophotonics Laboratory at UL Institute of Atomic Physics and Spectroscopy following the previous ICSQE-2018 conference. Four recent research projects are considered, including one EC Horizon-2020 project, two European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) projects and one project funded by the Latvian Council of Science (LCS). The projects are generally aimed at developing new optical methods and technologies for non-invasive in-vivo skin assessment to facilitate the early diagnostics of skin malformations (including cancers). Most of the projects explore novel approaches of camera-based biomedical imaging to the clinical diagnostics and…
Differentiation of seborrheic keratosis from basal cell carcinoma, nevi and melanoma by RGB autofluorescence imaging
2018
A clinical trial on the autofluorescence imaging of skin lesions comprising 16 dermatologically confirmed pigmented nevi, 15 seborrheic keratosis, 2 dysplastic nevi, histologically confirmed 17 basal cell carcinomas and 1 melanoma was performed. The autofluorescence spatial properties of the skin lesions were acquired by smartphone RGB camera under 405 nm LED excitation. The diagnostic criterion is based on the calculation of the mean autofluorescence intensity of the examined lesion in the spectral range of 515 nm–700 nm. The proposed methodology is able to differentiate seborrheic keratosis from basal cell carcinoma, pigmented nevi and melanoma. The sensitivity and specificity of the prop…
Towards to deep neural network application with limited training data: synthesis of melanoma's diffuse reflectance spectral images
2019
The goal of our study is to train artificial neural networks (ANN) using multispectral images of melanoma. Since the number of multispectral images of melanomas is limited, we offer to synthesize them from multispectral images of benign skin lesions. We used the previously created melanoma diagnostic criterion p'. This criterion is calculated from multispectral images of skin lesions captured under 526nm, 663nm, and 964nm LED illumination. We synthesize these three images from multispectral images of nevus so that the p' map matches the melanoma criteria (the values in the lesion area is >1, respectively). Demonstrated results show that by transforming multispectral images of benign nevus i…
<title>Compact multi-functional skin spectrometry set-up</title>
2006
A portable fibre-optic spectrometry set-up has been assembled and tested for applications in skin diffuse reflectance spectrometry, laser fluorescence spectrometry and multi-wavelength reflection photoplethysmography (multi-PPG) studies. The spectrometry set was tested by diffuse reflectance and fluorescence measurements for diagnostics of skin vascular malformations and pigmented diseases such as nevi and melanoma . In addition, studies of microcirculation in blood vessels located at different depths from the skin surface were performed by the multi-PPG method. The results of skin diffuse reflectance and autofluorescence showed differences in spectra of healthy and pathologic skin. The par…
Evaluation of skin pathologies by RGB autofluorescence imaging
2017
A clinical trial on autofluorescence imaging of malignant and non-malignant skin pathologies comprising 32 basal cell carcinomas (BCC), 4 malignant melanomas (MM), 1 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 89 nevi, 14 dysplastic nevi, 20 hemangiomas, 23 seborrheic keratoses, 4 hyperkeratoses, 3 actinic keratoses, 3 psoriasis, 1 dematitis, 2 dermatofibromas, 5 papillofibromas, 12 lupus erythematosus, 7 purpura, 6 bruises, 5 freckles, 3 fungal infections, 1 burn, 1 tattoo, 1 age spot, 1 vitiligo, 32 postoperative scars, 8 post cream therapy BCCs, 4 post radiation therapy scars, 2 post laser therapy scars, 1 post freezing scar as well as 114 reference images of healthy skin was performed. The sequence …
Fluorescence lifetime spectroscopy: potential for in-vivo estimation of skin fluorophores changes after low power laser treatment
2013
The impact of visible cwlaser irradiation on skin autofluorescence lifetimes was investigated in spectral range from 450 nm to 600 nm. Skin optical provocations were performed during 1 min by 405 nm low power cw laser with power density up to 20 mW/cm 2 . Autofluorescence lifetimes were measured before and immediately after the optical provocation.
Photobleaching measurements of pigmented and vascular skin lesions: results of a clinical trial
2011
The autofluorescence photobleaching intensity dynamics of in vivo skin and skin pathologies under continuous 532 nm laser irradiation have been studied. Overall the 141 human skin malformations were investigated by laser induced skin autofluorescence photobleaching analysis. Details of equipment are described along with some measurement results illustrating potentiality of the technology.
Parallel Measurements of in-vivo Skin Autofluorescence Lifetimes and Photobleaching Rates
2015
Experimental methodology for parallel measurements of in-vivo skin autofluorescence (AF) lifetimes and photo-bleaching dynamic has been developed and tested. The AF lifetime decay distributions were periodically collected from fixed tissue area with subsequent detection of the fluorescence intensity decrease dynamic at different time shifts after the pulse excitation. Temporal distributions of skin AF lifetimes and bleaching dynamic were collected and analyzed by means of commercial time-correlated single photon counting system. Details of the equipment and data processing are described as well as some measurement results that confirm the feasibility of the proposed technology.
Multi-wavelength photoplethysmography for simultaneous recording of skin blood pulsations at different vascular depths
2007
Parallel recording of reflection photoplethysmography (PPG) signals in broad spectral band has been performed, and potential of this approach for assessment of blood microcirculation at various vascular depths is discussed. PPG signals have been simultaneously detected at cw laser wavelengths sets comprising 405 nm, 532 nm, 645 nm, 807 nm and 1064 nm. Different signal baseline responses to breath holding at different wavelengths have been observed, as well as different shapes of the PPG pulses originated from the same heartbeat.
Assessment of efficiencies of electroporation and sonoporation methods by using fluorescence RGB imaging method
2013
Simple RGB method for fluorescence in vivo imaging is presented to assess efficiency of electroporation and sonoporation methods by measuring distribution and accumulation of green fluorescence protein (GFP) concentration. 20 laboratory measurements were performed on mice to test the method.
Automated microorganisms activity detection on the early growth stage using artificial neural networks
2019
The paper proposes an approach of a novel non-contact optical technique for early evaluation of microbial activity. Noncontact evaluation will exploit laser speckle contrast imaging technique in combination with artificial neural network (ANN) based image processing. Microbial activity evaluation process will comprise acquisition of time variable laser speckle patterns in given sample, ANN based image processing and visualization of obtained results. The proposed technology will measure microbial activity (like growth speed) and implement these results for counting live microbes. It is expected, that proposed technology will help to evaluate number of colony forming units (CFU) and return r…
Laser speckle time-series correlation analysis for bacteria activity detection
2020
The study aims at development and laboratory approbation of non-contact optical technique for early evaluation of microbial activity. Microorganisms’ activity is estimated by laser speckle contrast imaging technique in combination with image processing of obtained time varying speckle patterns. Laser speckle patterns were captured by CMOS sensor during illumination of growing bacteria colonies by low power (<30 mW, 635 nm) stabilized coherent light source. To validate proposed technique and image processing algorithm the vibrio natriegens bacteria are used. After analysis of several different experiments the following results were obtained: In the central part of the colony activity can be …
Imaging of laser-excited tissue autofluorescence bleaching rates.
2009
Experimental methodology for imaging of laser-excited tissue autofluorescence bleaching rates has been developed and clinically tested. The fluorescence images were periodically captured from the same tissue area over a certain time, with subsequent detection of the fluorescence intensity decrease rate at each image pixel and further imaging the planar distribution of those values. Spectral features at each image pixel were analyzed with a hyperspectral imaging camera. Details of the equipment and image processing are described as well as some measurement results that confirm the feasibility of the proposed technology.
Simultaneous recording of skin blood pulsations at different vascular depths by multiwavelength photoplethysmography.
2007
A new technique for parallel recording of reflection photoplethysmography (PPG) signals in a broad spectral band (violet to near-infrared) has been developed, and its potential for assessment of blood microcirculation at various depths from the skin surface is discussed. PPG signals have been simultaneously detected at cw laser wavelength sets comprising 405, 532, 645, 807, and 1064 nm. Various signal baseline responses to breath holding and different shapes of the PPG pulses originated from the same heartbeat but recorded at different wavelengths have been observed, indicating a depth variety of the skin blood pulsation dynamics.
Fluorescence spectroscopy for estimation of anticancer drug sonodestruction in vitro
2013
The effect of ultrasound exposure on bleomycin fluorescence and pharmacological properties is studied. Bleomycin was treated by ultrasound for 7 min. Bleomycin fluorescence was measured during ultrasound exposure by means of fiber-optic spectrometry. Cell colony test was used to evaluate blemycin cytotoxity before and after ultrasound exposure.
Clinical evaluation of melanomas and common nevi by spectral imaging
2012
A clinical trial on multi-spectral imaging of malignant and non-malignant skin pathologies comprising 17 melanomas and 65 pigmented common nevi was performed. Optical density data of skin pathologies were obtained in the spectral range 450-950 nm using the multispectral camera Nuance EX. An image parameter and maps capable of distinguishing melanoma from pigmented nevi were proposed. The diagnostic criterion is based on skin optical density differences at three fixed wavelengths: 540nm, 650nm and 950nm. The sensitivity and specificity of this method were estimated to be 94% and 89%, respectively. The proposed methodology and potential clinical applications are discussed.
Autofluorescence imaging of basal cell carcinoma by smartphone RGB camera
2015
The feasibility of smartphones for in vivo skin autofluorescence imaging has been investigated. Filtered autofluorescence images from the same tissue area were periodically captured by a smartphone RGB camera with subsequent detection of fluorescence intensity decreasing at each image pixel for further imaging the planar distribution of those values. The proposed methodology was tested clinically with 13 basal cell carcinoma and 1 atypical nevus. Several clinical cases and potential future applications of the smartphone-based technique are discussed.
Electroporation by concentric-type needle electrodes and arrays.
2017
Abstract The efficacy of genomic medicine depends on gene transfer efficiency. In this area, electroporation has been found to be a highly promising method for physical gene transfer. However, electroporation raises issues related to electrical safety, tissue damage, and the number of required wounds. Concentric-type needle electrodes seek to address these issues by using a lower bias (10 V), a single wound, fewer processing steps, and a smaller working area (≈ 10 mm 3 ), thus offering greater accuracy and precision. Moreover, the needle can be arrayed to simultaneously treat several target regions. This paper proposes a novel method using concentric-type needle electrodes to improve the ef…
Cloud Infrastructure for Skin Cancer Scalable Detection System
2018
Skin cancer diagnostics is one of the medical areas where early diagnostic allows achieving patients’ high survival rate. Typically, skin cancer diagnostic is performed by dermatologist, since the amount of such specialists is limited, mortality rate is high [1]. By creating the low cost and easy to use diagnostic device, it is possible to bring skin cancer diagnostic to primary care physicians and allow to check much more persons and diagnose skin cancer on the early stages. There are several existing devices, that provide skin cancer diagnostics [2]. Most of them process the skin images locally and have limited diagnostic capabilities; some of them send images to dermatologists for manual…
Noninvasive optical diagnostics of enhanced green fluorescent protein expression in skeletal muscle for comparison of electroporation and sonoporatio…
2015
We highlight the options available for noninvasive optical diagnostics of reporter gene expression in mouse tibialis cranialis muscle. An in vivo multispectral imaging technique combined with fluorescence spectroscopy point measurements has been used for the transcutaneous detection of enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) expression, providing information on location and duration of EGFP expression and allowing quantification of EGFP expression levels. For EGFP coding plasmid (pEGFP-Nuc Vector, 10 μg/50 ml 10 μg/50 ml ) transfection, we used electroporation or ultrasound enhanced microbubble cavitation [sonoporation (SP)]. The transcutaneous EGFP fluorescence in live mice was monit…
Embedded neural network system for microorganisms growth analysis
2020
This study presents autonomous system for microorganisms’ growth analysis in laboratory environment. As shown in previous research, laser speckle analysis allows detecting submicron changes of substrate with growing bacteria. By using neural networks for speckle analysis, it is possible to develop autonomous system, that can evaluate microorganisms’ growth by using cheap optics and electronics elements. System includes embedded processing module, CMOS camera, 670nm laser diode and optionally WiFi module for connecting to external image storage system. Due to small size, system could be fully placed in laboratory incubator with constant humidity and temperature. By using laser diode, Petri d…
Skin autofluorescence photo-bleaching and photo-memory
2011
Photo-bleaching of in-vivo skin autofluorescence intensity under continuous low power laser irradiation has been studied. Temporal behavior of single-spot fluorescence and spectral fluorescent images have been studied at continuous 405 nm, 473 nm and 532 nm laser excitation and/or pre-irradiation, with power densities well below the laser-skin safety limits. Skin autofluorescence photo-memory effects (laser signatures) have been observed and analyzed, as well.
Contact probe pressure effects in skin multi-spectral photoplethysmography
2007
A novel technique ensuring parallel recording of reflection photoplethysmography signals in broad spectral range has been tested for assessment of pressure-induced vascular changes at various depths from the skin surface. PPG signals have been simultaneously detected at three combinations of the cw laser wavelengths 405 nm, 532 nm, 645 nm, 807 nm and 1064 nm. The PPG baseline responses to the probe-skin contact pressure changes and shapes of the PPG pulses originated from the same heartbeat but recorded at different wavelengths have been detected and analyzed.
Multi-Path U-Net Architecture for Cell and Colony-Forming Unit Image Segmentation
2022
U-Net is the most cited and widely-used deep learning model for biomedical image segmentation. In this paper, we propose a new enhanced version of a ubiquitous U-Net architecture, which improves upon the original one in terms of generalization capabilities, while addressing several immanent shortcomings, such as constrained resolution and non-resilient receptive fields of the main pathway. Our novel multi-path architecture introduces a notion of an individual receptive field pathway, which is merged with other pathways at the bottom-most layer by concatenation and subsequent application of Layer Normalization and Spatial Dropout, which can improve generalization performance for small datase…
Quantitative Multispectral Imaging Differentiates Melanoma from Seborrheic Keratosis.
2021
Melanoma is a melanocytic tumor that is responsible for the most skin cancer-related deaths. By contrast, seborrheic keratosis (SK) is a very common benign lesion with a clinical picture that may resemble melanoma. We used a multispectral imaging device to distinguish these two entities, with the use of autofluorescence imaging with 405 nm and diffuse reflectance imaging with 525 and 660 narrow-band LED illumination. We analyzed intensity descriptors of the acquired images. These included ratios of intensity values of different channels, standard deviation and minimum/maximum values of intensity of the lesions. The pattern of the lesions was also assessed with the use of particle analysis. …