Yamaguchi Hiroshi, Saito Takaaki, Shiraishi Yasushi, Arai Fumihito, Morimoto Yoshinori, Yuasa Atsuko
FUJIFILM Corporation, Imaging Technology Center, Miyanodai 798, Kaisei, Kanagawa 258-8538, Japan.
Nagoya University, Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8603, Japan.
J Biomed Opt. 2015 Mar;20(3):036005. doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.20.3.036005.
Increase in abnormal microvessels in the superficial mucosa is often relevant to diagnostic findings of neoplasia in digestive endoscopy; hence, observation of superficial vasculature is crucial for cancer diagnosis. To enhance the appearance of such vessels, several spectral endoscopic imaging techniques have been developed, such as narrow-band imaging and blue laser imaging. Both techniques exploit narrow-band blue light for the enhancement. The emergence of such spectral imaging techniques has increased the importance of understanding the relation of the light wavelength to the appearance of superficial vasculature, and thus a new method is desired for quantitative analysis of vessel visibility in relation to the actual structure in the tissue. Here, we developed microvessel-simulating phantoms that allowed quantitative evaluation of the appearance of 15-μm-thick vessels. We investigated the relation between the vascular contrast and light wavelength by the phantom measurements and also verified it in experiments with swine, where the endoscopically observed vascular contrast was investigated together with its real vascular depth and diameter obtained by microscopic observation of fluorescence-labeled vessels. Our study indicates that changing the spectral property even in the wavelength range of blue light may allow selective enhancement of the vascular depth for clinical use.
浅表黏膜中异常微血管的增加通常与消化内镜检查中的肿瘤诊断结果相关；因此，观察浅表脉管系统对于癌症诊断至关重要。为了增强此类血管的显现，已开发出几种光谱内镜成像技术，如窄带成像和蓝光成像。这两种技术都利用窄带蓝光进行增强。此类光谱成像技术的出现增加了理解光波长与浅表脉管系统外观之间关系的重要性，因此需要一种新方法来定量分析与组织中实际结构相关的血管可见性。在此，我们开发了微血管模拟体模，可对15μm厚的血管外观进行定量评估。我们通过体模测量研究了血管对比度与光波长之间的关系，并在猪实验中进行了验证，在该实验中，通过对荧光标记血管的显微镜观察，同时研究了内镜观察到的血管对比度及其实际血管深度和直径。我们的研究表明，即使在蓝光波长范围内改变光谱特性，也可能在临床应用中实现血管深度的选择性增强。
