Cuartas-Vélez Carlos, Gómez-Gallego Isabella, Bosschaart Nienke
Biomedical Photonic Imaging Group, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, Enschede, The Netherlands.
Applied Optics Group, Universidad EAFIT, Carrera 49 # 7 Sur - 50, Medellín, Colombia.
Biomed Opt Express. 2025 Mar 24;16(4):1569-1581. doi: 10.1364/BOE.549671. eCollection 2025 Apr 1.
Clinically, a high demand exists for the noninvasive assessment of total hemoglobin concentrations in vulnerable patient groups. Despite the sensitivity of many optical modalities to the absorption of hemoglobin, it has remained challenging to optically measure hemoglobin concentrations noninvasively with sufficient accuracy. Compared to other optical modalities, visible-light spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (vis-sOCT) has the unique ability to quantify optical properties within highly confined tissue volumes. However, total hemoglobin quantification is still limited due to a lack of dedicated acquisition schemes, processing methods, and validation against a gold standard. In this work, we introduce an approach that combines optical angiography with spatially resolved visible-light spectroscopy to obtain clinically representative estimations of the total hemoglobin concentration in the skin microcirculation. We validate our approach on a group of 27 healthy volunteers against hemoglobin measurements on venous blood samples with a commercial blood analyzer. The measured hemoglobin concentration by vis-sOCT correlates moderately, but significantly with the blood analyzer ( = 0.47, = 0.015). This approach quantifies hemoglobin with a mean bias of 0.6 g dL and an average standard deviation of 1.3 g dL in the healthy hemoglobin range (14-19 g dL). Moreover, the results highlight the known influence of gender on the comparison between the microcirculatory and venous hemoglobin concentration. This observed influence of gender further suggests that vis-sOCT is sensitive to microcirculatory changes in hemoglobin concentration.
临床上，对于脆弱患者群体的总血红蛋白浓度进行无创评估的需求很高。尽管许多光学方法对血红蛋白的吸收很敏感，但以足够的准确度进行血红蛋白浓度的无创光学测量仍然具有挑战性。与其他光学方法相比，可见光光谱光学相干断层扫描（vis-sOCT）具有在高度受限的组织体积内量化光学特性的独特能力。然而，由于缺乏专门的采集方案、处理方法以及针对金标准的验证，总血红蛋白定量仍然受到限制。在这项工作中，我们引入了一种将光学血管造影与空间分辨可见光光谱相结合的方法，以获得皮肤微循环中总血红蛋白浓度的具有临床代表性的估计值。我们在一组27名健康志愿者身上验证了我们的方法，并与使用商用血液分析仪对静脉血样本进行的血红蛋白测量结果进行了对比。通过vis-sOCT测量的血红蛋白浓度与血液分析仪的测量结果具有中等程度但显著相关性（r = 0.47，p = 0.015）。在健康血红蛋白范围（14 - 19 g/dL）内，这种方法量化血红蛋白的平均偏差为0.6 g/dL，平均标准差为1.3 g/dL。此外，结果突出了性别对微循环血红蛋白浓度与静脉血红蛋白浓度比较的已知影响。观察到的性别影响进一步表明vis-sOCT对血红蛋白浓度的微循环变化敏感。
