Toward noninvasive assessment of flap viability with time-resolved diffuse optical tomography: a preclinical test on rats

Abstract

Abstract. The noninvasive assessment of flap viability in autologous reconstruction surgery is still an unmet clinical need. To cope with this problem, we developed a proof-of-principle fully automatized setup for fast timegated diffuse optical tomography exploiting Mellin-Laplace transform to obtain three-dimensional tomographic reconstructions of oxy-and deoxy-hemoglobin concentrations. We applied this method to perform preclinical tests on rats inducing total venous occlusion in the cutaneous abdominal flaps. Notwithstanding the use of just four source-detector couples, we could detect a spatially localized increase of deoxyhemoglobin following the occlusion (up to 550 μM in 54 min). Such capability to image spatio-temporal evolution of blood perfusion is a key issue for the noninvasive monitoring of flap viability.

Quantification in time-domain diffuse optical tomography using Mellin-Laplace transforms

“…Recently, we have also proposed the monitoring of autologous tissues ("flap") in reconstruction surgery using diffuse optical techniques. The vascularization of these tissues is fundamental and a fast postoperative control is important for the success of the operation [7].…”

Time-Gated Single-Photon Detection in Time-Domain Diffuse Optics: A Review

“…At any rate, even if the quantification is not precise, the tomography based on fast-gated acquisition can be used for clinical applications. To the best of our knowledge, the only one presented in literature is a preclinical study on the assessment of flap viability on rats [147]. In this study, the authors used four source-detector couples to get a tomographic reconstruction of the vessel below the flap where a venous occlusion was induced by clamping the vein.…”

New frontiers in time-domain diffuse optics, a review

“…At any rate, this technology has been considered within recent years [69][70][71][72]97,106,107 because it is the only one presently allowing the exploration of new physical concepts like the null source-detector separation and measurement schemes based on the dense arrangement of optodes. 73 We already discussed in Sec.…”