INFRARED IMAGING TO STUDY HAND SKIN MICROCIRCULATION IN HEALTHY AND SYSTEMIC SCLEROSIS VOLUNTEER

In this paper, we have presented our study on microcirculation spatial heterogeneity. We processed Near-Infrared Spectroscopic (NIRS) 2D images of haemoglobin O2 saturation in the hand skin of a normal volunteer and the one affected by systemic sclerosis (SSc). The images were acquired during baseline, ischemia and reperfusion. We used an NIR spectroscopic camera (Kent camera, Kent Imaging, Calgary, Canada) to acquire oxygen-saturation 2D maps of the whole-hand palmar surface. Background and noise limiting the segmentation process were removed by edge detection. Segmentation of test areas in each condition was obtained by means of thresholding based region growing. Results highlight differences in microcirculation in hand skin of normal and pathological subject.