Multispectral imaging has recently shown good performance in determining information about physiology, morphology, and composition of tissue. In the endoscopy field, many researches have shown the ability to apply multispectral or narrow-band images in surveying vascular structure based on the interaction of light wavelength with tissue composition. However, there has been no mention to assess the contrast between other components in the middle ear such as the tympanic membrane, malleus, and the surrounding area. Using CT, OCT, or ODT can clearly describe the tympanic membrane structure; nevertheless, these approaches are expensive, more complex, and time-consuming and are not suitable for most common middle ear diagnoses. Here, we show the potential of using the multispectral imaging technique to enhance the contrast of the tympanic membrane compared to the surrounding tissue. The optical absorption and scattering of biological tissues constituents are not the same at different wavelengths. In this pilot study, multiwavelength images of the tympanic membrane were captured by using the otoscope with LED light source at three distinct spectral regions: 450 nm, 530 nm, and 630 nm. Subsequently, analyses of the intensity images as well as the histogram of these images point out that the 630 nm illumination image features an evident contrast in the intensity of the tympanic membrane and malleus compared to the surrounding area. Analysis of such images could facilitate the boundary determination and segmentation of the tympanic membrane (TM) with high precision.
Collagen provides tissue strength and structural integrity. Quantification of the orientated dispersion of collagen fibers is an important factor when studying the mechanical properties of the cervix. In this study, for the first time, a new method for rapid characterization of the collagen fiber orientations of the cervix using linearly polarized light colposcopy is presented. A total of 24 colposcopic images were captured using a cross-polarized imaging system with white LED light sources. In the preprocessing stage, the Red channel of the RGB image was chosen, which contains no information of the blood vessels because of the low-absorption of blood cells in the red region. OrientationJ, which is an ImageJ plug-in, was used to estimate the local orientation of the collagen fibers. The result shows that in the nonpregnant cervix, the middle zone (Zone 2) has circumferentially aligned collagen fibers while the inner zone (Zone 1) has randomly arranged. The collagen fiber dispersion in Zone 2 is much smaller than that in Zone 1 at all four quadrants region (anterior, posterior, left, and right quadrant). This new analysis technique could potentially combine with diagnostic tools to provide a quantitative platform of collagen fibers in the clinic.
Cervical cancer is one of the two most common gynecological cancers in the world, including breast cancer. Signs of cervical disease are usually the presence of atypical epithelium, superficial bleeding or abnormal vascular proliferation. Most of these signs are directly related to cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and cervical cancer. Currently, to detect epithelial lesions as well as to observe the shape of blood vessels, the main diagnostic methods used are colposcopy and visual examination. This method has low sensitivity and specificity because subjective factors still exist and the method does not clearly distinguish the shape of proliferating blood vessels. Therefore, in order to improve the efficiency of disease diagnosis, many studies applying image processing techniques to support auto-diagnosis have become topics of interest. However, studies that support automatic identify abnormal blood vessel shape and density are very limited. In this study, colposcopy images were recorded by digital colposcopes. These images are taken under polarized light to help reduce reflections from the surface and support for better image processing steps. Then, Sauvola threshold method is used to separate blood vessels on the surface of the cervix. It is combined with three different image preprocessing methods to enhance the contrast between the blood and the background. Finally, the sensitivity and specificity of these methods were calculated and evaluated. The results of the study set the stage for cervical blood vessel identification studies as well as cervical cancer assessment.
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