Real-time tissue perfusion measurements through a flexible colonoscope using laser speckle contrast imaging (Conference Presentation)

Laser speckle contrast imaging has been successfully paired with rigid laparoscopy for real-time surgical assistance, but several hardware and regulatory challenges have prevented the integration of this technique with flexible gastrointestinal endoscopes. To enable in-vivo gastrointestinal speckle contrast imaging, a clinical colonoscope was modified to accept illumination from both a conventional clinical source and a custom laser source. The custom illumination source was comprised of a high-coherence 639 nm laser and a low-coherence red-green-blue laser that were combined and synchronized with a clinical system’s frame acquisition. The source was used to rapidly acquire interlaced speckle and white light frames for simultaneous display of perfusion and conventional color frames. The proposed system was applied during human screening colonoscopies to measure differences in perfusion between diseased and surrounding healthy tissue.