Enhancement in sensitivity of a blood perfusion parameter for frame-rate analysis of bio-speckle image.

We have previously presented a blood perfusion parameter by means of the spatial contrast of speckle patterns observed for blood perfusion in skin tissue and a blood vessel. This parameter permits us to visualize a relative blood perfusion distribution from a single speckle pattern. Therefore, it can estimate the blood perfusion with a frame rate of an imaging device employed. This parameter is, however, dependent on the speckle size and the condition of image processing of speckle patterns. In the present study, we estimated this condition with relation to the speckle size for obtaining high sensitivity and good linearity of the parameter to the blood perfusion. Experiments were conducted for ground-glass model, flow model and human wrist to investigate perfusion sensing characteristics of the present parameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]