Study on non-contact imaging of vascular compliance

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26820161
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Measurement engineering
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Science (2015); Nippon Sport Science University (2014)
• Principal Investigator: NAKANO KAZUYA 東京理科大学, 理学部, 助教 (80713833)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 血管コンプライアンス / 静脈コンプライアンス / 脈波伝播速度 / 非接触計測 / 光伝播モンテカルロ法 / RGBカメラ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Recently, it is said that there is the relationship between human’s venous compliance, which corresponds to the ability of veins to stretch, and venous thrombosis. Conventional strain-gauge plethysmograph (SPG) often suffers from errors due to limb movement. Thus, we proposed the non-contact and non-invasive imaging of venous compliance using RGB camera and, from the resulting images, observed the spatial distribution of venous compliance, which correlates with the distribution of veins.
Pulse wave velocity (PWV) has been used as the evaluation index of arteriosclerosis and is on the order of m/s. Currently, tonometry is the conventional methods to measure PWV. However, The direction or pressing force of tonometry sensor affects the measurement of pulse wave. Therefore, the non-contact measurement system based on digital color images of human skin was proposed. The PWV measured using the proposed system is in the order of m/s. The results demonstrate the feasibility of this method.

Free Research Field

生体医用光学　光情報処理