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Project
Single-sensor methods for fluorescence-guided surgery (FWOAL1049)
Fluorescence imaging is making headways in surgical assistance,
lighting up blood flow, lymph nodes or even specific tissues such as
tumors or nerves in an effort to guide a surgeon in procedures and
decisions. There exist systems that can image the natural
fluorescence of tissues and other systems to image injected
fluorescence contrast in the infrared. These systems have to be built
with multiple camera’s to capture both the fluorescence and the
natural color image. We propose to research a novel method in
which, using pulsed multispectral illumination in combination with a
nanosecond camera with one single image sensor, the natural color
image, and the natural fluorescence, and the infrared fluorescence
can be imaged simultaneously. This will be possible by separating
the spectral components of the illumination on a nanosecond
timescale and imaging these components selectively with the
nanosecond camera. On top of this, this technique would allow to
also image the fluorescence lifetime, a parameter which enables
monitoring of additional tissue information such as pH or oxygenation
during a surgical intervention. In this project we wish to take the first
step towards this innovative method and demonstrate it a first time to
incite follow-up fundamental and applied research
lighting up blood flow, lymph nodes or even specific tissues such as
tumors or nerves in an effort to guide a surgeon in procedures and
decisions. There exist systems that can image the natural
fluorescence of tissues and other systems to image injected
fluorescence contrast in the infrared. These systems have to be built
with multiple camera’s to capture both the fluorescence and the
natural color image. We propose to research a novel method in
which, using pulsed multispectral illumination in combination with a
nanosecond camera with one single image sensor, the natural color
image, and the natural fluorescence, and the infrared fluorescence
can be imaged simultaneously. This will be possible by separating
the spectral components of the illumination on a nanosecond
timescale and imaging these components selectively with the
nanosecond camera. On top of this, this technique would allow to
also image the fluorescence lifetime, a parameter which enables
monitoring of additional tissue information such as pH or oxygenation
during a surgical intervention. In this project we wish to take the first
step towards this innovative method and demonstrate it a first time to
incite follow-up fundamental and applied research
Date:1 Jan 2022 → Today
Keywords:fluorescence-guided surgery, multi-modal imaging, fast-gated camera
Disciplines:Biological system engineering not elsewhere classified, Biomedical image processing, Biomedical instrumentation, Embedded systems, Photodetectors, optical sensors and solar cells