Key result
Combined near-infrared and laser speckle imaging successfully identifies intraoperative parathyroid glands and assesses their vascularity.
Why the study?
During thyroid surgeries, accurately identifying healthy parathyroid glands and assessing their vascularity is important to preserve postoperative function and prevent hypoparathyroidism and hypocalcemia.
Does a combined near-infrared autofluorescence and laser speckle contrast imaging system accurately identify parathyroid glands and assess their vascularity during thyroid surgery?
Does a combined near-infrared autofluorescence and laser speckle contrast imaging system accurately identify parathyroid glands and assess their vascularity during thyroid surgery?
A novel combined imaging system using near-infrared autofluorescence and laser speckle contrast imaging can successfully identify parathyroid glands and assess their vascularity label-free during surgery.
May facilitate label-free parathyroid assessment intraoperatively; leaves open outcome benefits pending prospective validation.
During thyroid surgeries, it is important for surgeons to accurately identify healthy parathyroid glands and assess their vascularity to preserve their function postoperatively, thus preventing hypoparathyroidism and hypocalcemia. Near infrared autofluorescence detection enables parathyroid identification, while laser speckle contrast imaging allows assessment of parathyroid vascularity. Here, we present an imaging system combining the two techniques to perform both functions, simultaneously and label-free. An algorithm to automate the segmentation of a parathyroid gland in the fluorescence image to determine its average speckle contrast is also presented, reducing a barrier to clinical translation. Results from imaging ex vivo tissue samples show that the algorithm is equivalent to manual segmentation. Intraoperative images from representative procedures are presented showing successful implementation of the device to identify and assess vascularity of healthy and diseased parathyroid glands.
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Mannoh et al. (2021) studied Thyroid surgery. Combined near-infrared autofluorescence and laser speckle contrast imaging system vs. Manual segmentation (for algorithm) was evaluated on Parathyroid gland identification and vascularity assessment. A combined near-infrared autofluorescence and laser speckle contrast imaging system with automated segmentation successfully identified and assessed the vascularity of parathyroid glands intraoperatively.
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