Hand-held advanced functional imager for assessing local tissue oxygenation

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant We propose development of an advanced functional imager to assess red blood cell RBC transfusion The prototype will be tested in a functional phantom during this SBIR Phase I project The key features of the imager are the ability to quantify local tissue oxygenation with a handheld probe for easy tissue access Our preliminarily market research indicates a strong demand for such instrument to help physicians effectively perform RBC transfusion which is the most common inpatient hospital procedure We hypothesize that non invasive technology capable of providing repeated D functional maps of tissue microvessels with diameters between m where oxygen starts diffusing to the parenchymal tissues will significantly decrease morbidity and mortality in RBC transfusion Such technology has the potential to guide procedures by providing favorable information about optimal transfusion threshold as well as evaluation of RBCs degradation with storage time and conditions Current imaging technologies used to assess RBC transfusion include Sidestream Dark Field SDF Orthogonal Polarization Spectral OPS and Near Infrared Spectroscopy NIRS do not provide D maps of microvascular blood oxygenation and flow in a single microvessel with diameter m SDF and OPS provide D non depth resolved angiography and blood flow microvasculature information thus missing the oxygenation information and arterioles and venules discrimination The NIRS provides average arterial oxygenation information from a few square mm area and thus misses oxygen extraction blood flow and spatial resolution We propose to fill this gap with the proposed imaging technology for RBC transfusion assessment by combining multifunctional optical coherence tomography OCT and OPS in a single hand held device OPS offers real time D microvasculature map for user guidance purposes while multifunctional OCT provides D microvasculature angiography and maps of blood flow and hemoglobin oxygen O saturation SO in single arterioles and venules as well as O extraction and relative oxygen consumption We believe our approach provides the needed performance to solve a critical problem and a clear path to successful commercialization This project will have strong social impact by providing critical clinical information to improve patient outcomes Quantitative imaging of local tissue oxygen delivery and consumption will not only improve RBC transfusion outcome but has a great potential to decrease morbidity and mortality in many devastating diseases with vascular etiology including a variety of malignant inflammatory ischemic infectious and immune disorders PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE The objective of this project is to create and test in functional tissue phantom a proof of principle prototype of an innovative and cost effective advanced functional imager to assess local tissue oxygenation To construct an advanced functional imager we will combine in a convenient hand held design Orthogonal Polarization Spectroscopy OPS with multimodal Optical Coherence Tomography OCT to provide D and D maps of microvasculature locations hemoglobin oxygen saturation SO blood flow O extraction and relative oxygen consumption The broader commercial impact of the proposed project will be to understand the influence of the RBCs parameters on the outcome of the transfusion therapy and subsequently wider acceptance of advanced functional imager as a reliable monitoring tool that favorably influence clinician decision making on patientandapos s treatment including the need and parameters of blood transfusion End of Abstract