Plethysmogram is the periodic variation in blood volume due to the cardiac pulse traveling through the body. Photo-plethysmograph (PPG) has been widely used to assess the cardiovascular system such as heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, vascular compliance. We have previously proposed a non-contact PPG imaging method using a digital red-green-blue camera. In the method, the Monte Carlo simulation for light transport is used to specify a relationship among the RGB-values and the concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin (CHbO) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (CHbR). The total hemoglobin concentration (CHbT) can be calculated as a sum of CHbO and CHbR. Applying the fast Fourier transform (FFT) band pass filters to each pixel of the sequential images for CHbT along the time line, two-dimentional plethysmogram can be reconstructed. In this study, we further extend the method to imaging the arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2). The PPG signals for both CHbO and CHbR are extracted by the FFT band pass filter and the pulse wave amplitudes (PWAs) of CHbO and CHbR are calculated. We assume that the PWA for CHbO and that for CHbR are decreased and increased as SaO2 is decreased. The ratio of PWA for CHbO and that for CHbR are associated to the reference value of SaO2 measured by a commercially available pulse oximeter, which provide an empirical formula to estimate SaO2 from the PPG signal at each pixel of RGB image. In vivo animal experiments with rats during varying the fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed method.
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