The oxygen utilization and, therefore, the metabolic state, of a distinctive area of the retina may be calculated from the diameter of the supplying artery and vein, the haemoglobin oxygenation, and the velocity of the blood. The first two parameters can be determined by imaging spectrometry at the patients ocular fundus. However, the reflected light emerging from a vessel followed different pathways through the ocular fundus layers and the vessel embedded in the retina. The contribution of the single pathways to the vessel reflection profile is investigated by a Monte Carlo simulation. Considering retinal vessels with diameters of 25-200 microm we found the reflection from a thin vessel to be determined by the single and double transmission of light at 560 nm. The backscattering from the blood column determines the reflectance in the case of a thick vessel. However, both components are in the same order of magnitude. This has to be considered in the calculation of the oxygen saturation of blood in retinal vessels from their reflection spectra.
For the non-invasive measurement of the oxygen saturation in human retinal vessels, the light reflected by a vessel and its surroundings is evaluated. Differences in the absorption and scattering properties of the optical media provide so-called vessel profiles, but the central vessel section is often disturbed by a regular reflex. In order to eliminate this reflex, a method based on the Hilbert transform is presented, which can be used for the determination of logarithmic differences between the reflected light on and that beside the vessel. The data for our investigations were produced by simulation of the radiation transport in multi-layered tissue. A linear regression between expected and measured values based on 40 pairs was used for the evaluation of the proposed method. A linear relationship was shown to exist.
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