Prediction of Bilirubin Concentration using Neonatal Forehead Images

Abstract

Neonatal jaundice is one of the most common reasons for hospital admission in the neonatal care unit, which it is associated to significant morbidity and mortality. Neonatal jaundice, indicated with hyper bilirubin in neonatal blood, occur in 60% of >35 weeks neonatal and 80% of <35 weeks neonatal. Therefore, it is important to develop the ease method to predict the hyper bilirubin in neonatal. This study was performed to develop the easy and objective method to determine the bilirubin in neonatal based on the forehead image captured using smartphone camera. Methodology of this research including the capturing of the neonatal forehead with the calibration color chart, followed by analyzing the image using ImageJ software to extract the color intensity of the digital images. The red, green and blue (RGB) colors were then analyzed to find the best correlation between the color intensity of neonatal forehead images with the blood bilirubin concentration. The bilirubin concentration was determined using standard method performed in the hospital based on spectrophotometric method. The smartphone-based methods of neonatal forehead images showed a linear correlation (R2=0.832) between blue color intensity and blood bilirubin concentration of neonatal observed with a regression line of y= -4.954x + 160.45. This result could be used for further self-detection by the mothers of neonatal jaundice or healthcare monitoring mainly in the remote area.