Development of a non-invasive non-contact optical device for estimating TcB in Neonates

Abstract

Neonates tend to get affected with jaundice due to accumulation of unsaturated bilirubin in their body within few days of birth and needs special care to save them from kernicterus and death. The current method of diagnosis uses Total Serum Bilirubin (TSB) value as a gold standard to estimate concentration of bilirubin. TSB is obtained through an invasive and painful blood sampling technique. As an alternative Transcutaneous Bilirubin (TcB) is used clinically to estimate the concentration of bilirubin, where a probe is placed on the forehead of neonate and illuminated with a light source. The study reported in this paper explores the possibility of using 460nm Lights rays in a non-invasive and non-contact mode to estimate the concentration of bilirubin in neonates. A portable device with 460nm light source and photodiode has been developed to measure the skin reflectance in neonates and a correlation study has been conducted between the skin absorbance and TcB measured using NeoBil on 8 neonates (Day of Life < 4 days). The study results reported an acceptable correlation between TcB and Skin Absorbance of 460nm light with a correlation coefficient of 0.93. The result provides a valuable ground work for development of a non-invasive noncontact optical device for measuring the transcutaneous bilirubin in neonates.