Observation and density estimation of a large number of skin capillaries using wide-field portable video capillaroscopy and semantic segmentation.

ABSTRACT:

Significance

Skin capillaries are non-invasively observable; their structure and blood flow can reflect tissue and systemic conditions. Quantitative analysis of video-capillaroscopy images yields novel diagnostic methods. Because the capillary structure is heterogeneous, analyzing more capillaries can increase the evaluation reliability.

Aim

We developed a system that can observe and quantify numerous capillaries and verified the performance on human skin.

Approach

We developed a portable video-capillaroscope with a spatial resolution higher than 3.5  μm and a wide field of view (7.4  mm×5.5  mm) and a method to evaluate capillary numbers and areas using U-Net. The model was trained and tested with 22 and 11 cropped images (2.4  mm×1.9  mm) obtained from 11 participan

SUBMITTER: Takimoto B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10594543 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature