Application to biomedical measurement using a micro multipoint LDV (For in-vivo evaluation in early-stage blood flow velocity images of malignant melanoma)

Abstract

We intend to develop a laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) system for in-vivo imaging that can measure blood flow velocity, that can generate tomograph of blood vessels with information in the depth direction and that has a high spatial resolution to enable individual microvessels. The present system evolved from a multipoint LDV (MLDV) that we developed for performing simultaneous multipoint measurements of water flow in transparent artificial flow channels. In this paper, we suggest an optical component of advanced MLDV for in-vivo and a method to determine the blood flow velocity from the sampling data. We measured microvessels of an experimental mouse, and succeeded in imaging the blood flow velocity in microvessels as 2 or 3 dimensional images. Finally, we demonstrate that using MLDV of blood vessels is useful for diagnosing malignant melanomas by comparison with visual diagnosis by dermoscopy. ©2013 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.