Quantifying Blood Flow: The Development of Physical and Financial Models of Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging

Abstract

Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging (LSCI) utilizes light scattering to visualize blood flow across time and space. In particular, moving red blood cells blur the interference (speckle) pattern compared with static tissue. By imaging a scattering medium and computing speckle contrast over the image pixels, two-dimensional speckle contrast perfusion mappings can be generated. This thesis explores the development of a phantom perfusion model by creating a blood flow phantom, configuring an imaging setup to capture light scatter from the phantom, and developing image processing functions to compute speckle contrast from the images captured from the phantom. The efficacy of the system as a model of blood flow is evaluated based on the resulting contrast mappings from the images captured. LSCI impacts a broad scope of clinical disciplines including assessing the severity of burn wounds and monitoring cerebral blood flow levels during neurosurgery. With the growing space for clinical applications of LSCI, this thesis also evaluates the financial value of commercializing LSCI technology, with the financial model positing that investment in an LSCI firm results in favorable returns below particular thresholds of initial investment.