A non-invasive spectral reflectance method for mapping blood oxygen saturation in wounds

Reflectance spectroscopy is a common technique used to analyze blood oxygen saturation in biological tissues. This study describes a non-invasive method for mapping blood oxygen saturation in wounds using reflectance measurements obtained from a hyperspectral imaging system. The maps illustrate changes in blood oxygen saturation with high spatial resolution. This allows observation into local blood oxygen supplies of tissue as opposed to common point measurement techniques such as pulse oximetry and optical fiber probing. To demonstrate this, an algorithm designed to calculate the blood oxygen saturation from narrow band reflectance images at 760 and 800 nm was used. The algorithm incorporates the contributions of absorption by oxy-(HbO₂) and deoxy-hemoglobin (Hb) at the oxygen (O₂) sensitive and O₂ insensitive wavelength. Results of the algorithms performance are presented to demonstrate that reflectance measurements can be used to determine the amount of blood O₂ saturation of a wound.