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. 2024 Feb;17(2):e202300330.
doi: 10.1002/jbio.202300330. Epub 2023 Oct 25.

Enhancing epidural needle guidance using a polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography probe with convolutional neural networks

Chen Wang  1 , Yunlong Liu  2 , Paul Calle  2 , Xinwei Li  3 , Ronghao Liu  4 , Qinghao Zhang  1 , Feng Yan  1 , Kar-Ming Fung  5   6 , Andrew K Conner  7 , Sixia Chen  8 , Chongle Pan  2 , Qinggong Tang  1
Affiliations

Enhancing epidural needle guidance using a polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography probe with convolutional neural networks

Chen Wang et al. J Biophotonics. 2024 Feb.

Abstract

Epidural anesthesia helps manage pain during different surgeries. Nonetheless, the precise placement of the epidural needle remains a challenge. In this study, we developed a probe based on polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) to enhance the epidural anesthesia needle placement. The probe was tested on six porcine spinal samples. The multimodal imaging guidance used the OCT intensity mode and three distinct PS-OCT modes: (1) phase retardation, (2) optic axis, and (3) degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU). Each mode enabled the classification of different epidural tissues through distinct imaging characteristics. To further streamline the tissue recognition procedure, convolutional neural network (CNN) were used to autonomously identify the tissue types within the probe's field of view. ResNet50 models were developed for all four imaging modes. DOPU imaging was found to provide the highest cross-testing accuracy of 91.53%. These results showed the improved precision by PS-OCT in guiding epidural anesthesia needle placement.

Keywords: deep-learning; endoscope; epidural anesthesia guidance; polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Experimental setup of the PS-OCT probe.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Data acquisition of the epidural tissues with the PS-OCT probe.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
PS-OCT imaging results of epidural tissues and corresponding histology.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Grad-CAM and heatmap examples of different imaging results in four modes.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
ROC curves of different imaging modes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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