Medical Imaging Overlay via Motion-Adaptive Fluorescence Filtering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Intra-operative medical imaging systems face challenges in visualizing fluorescent features clearly due to weak and noisy signals, leading to potential missed details, especially for thin features, and strong fluorescence signals can cause saturation, obscuring live image details.
Innovation Solution
A medical imaging device and method that includes an illumination unit emitting excitation light to stimulate fluorescent features, an imaging unit to capture both fluorescent and live images, and a processing unit with motion detection and adaptive filtering to generate overlay images. The processing unit applies motion-based adaptive filtering and non-linear mapping to enhance fluorescent detail visibility while suppressing noise, ensuring live image details remain visible.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If fluorescence imaging is performed to visualize fluorescent features, then fluorescent details become visible, but the signal is weak and noisy leading to potential missed details
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by capturing multiple pre-processed images before final display, applying motion compensation and noise reduction algorithms in advance to improve signal quality before the fluorescent details are finalized for presentation to the surgeon
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates multiple copies of the fluorescent signal through frame accumulation and temporal averaging, where multiple pre-processed images are combined to generate a higher quality composite image that reduces noise while preserving fluorescent detail visibility
2Measurement precision
If fluorescence imaging is performed to enhance fluorescent features, then fluorescent visibility improves, but strong fluorescence signals cause saturation obscuring live image details
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality control through adaptive histogram equalization and contrast enhancement algorithms that selectively adjust brightness and contrast in different regions of the image, ensuring fluorescent features are enhanced without causing saturation that would obscure underlying live image details
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts imaging parameters including exposure time, gain, and filter settings in real-time based on the detected fluorescence signal intensity, allowing the system to adapt between capturing weak fluorescent signals and preventing saturation of strong signals while maintaining live image detail visibility
3Reliability
If noise reduction filtering is applied to fluorescent images, then noise is suppressed, but motion artifacts are introduced when tissue or imaging unit moves
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms by continuously monitoring motion between frames using optical flow analysis and automatically adjusting the filtering strength accordingly, reducing or disabling temporal filtering when motion is detected to prevent artifacts while maintaining noise reduction when the scene is stable
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary motion detection and compensation before applying noise reduction filters, calculating motion vectors and transforming images into a common reference frame in advance, which allows subsequent filtering to occur on motion-corrected images rather than raw moving images
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively amplifies fluorescent details in overlay images without saturation, effectively suppressing noise, thereby improving the visualization of fluorescent features during medical procedures.
Implementation Method 1
The illumination unit is configured to illuminate an area of the tissue by emitting illumination light that includes at least excitation light that excites fluorescent features in the tissue to emit fluorescent light
Data Source
AI summary
Devices and their uses for medical imaging in particular intra-operative imaging of tissue of a patient's body. The device comprises the illumination unit, the imaging unit, the processing unit and the display unit. The imaging unit captures fluorescent images (I_fluo) and live images (I_live) of the same scenery. In the processing unit, the fluorescent images (I_fluo) are processed by using the detected motion between the tissue and the imaging unit based on the detected motion. The filtered fluorescent images (I_filt) are non-linearly mapped into the live images (I_live) in order to improve the visibility of fluorophores in the tissue resulting in an overlay image (I_over) that comprises details of the live images (I_live) on the one hand and details of the fluorescent images (I_fluo) on the other hand.