Implementation of laser speckle imaging system with low cost consumer graded instrumentation for skin perfusion

Abstract

The scattering effect of laser light irradiation on a matter surface creates motion-sensitive “speckle patterns”. The resulted Laser Speckle Imaging (LSI) has attracted a lot of attention in medical applications such as wound healing, rodent cerebral blood flow, and peripheral circulation examination due to its capability in revealing regional microcirculation conditions of tissue capillaries. However, the high price of a FDA-approved LSI system is the obstacle for being wildly used by the public. In this work we implemented two different preliminary LSI systems for comparisons. One is in scientific grade, and the other consists of low-cost consumer graded components. We examine their performance by imaging a simulated ischemic skin condition.