Multi-contrast laser endoscopy for in vivo gastrointestinal imaging

2025-05-15

AI Summary

Conventional white-light endoscopy suffers from low chromatic, textural, and morphological contrast in gastrointestinal tissues, leading to frequent missed detection of early lesions. To address this, we propose the Multimodal Contrast Laser Endoscopy (MLE) platform—a novel integrated system that simultaneously acquires three complementary contrast channels: multispectral reflectance imaging, laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) for microcirculatory perfusion mapping, and photometric stereo for 3D surface topography reconstruction. Leveraging tunable-laser illumination, MLE enables wide-field, in vivo, high-resolution multimodal imaging—overcoming the dimensional limitations of conventional narrow-band imaging. In a clinical evaluation involving 31 patients with colorectal polyps, MLE demonstrated approximately threefold higher average contrast and fivefold greater color difference compared to both white-light and narrow-band imaging, significantly enhancing lesion visibility and detection sensitivity.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Multi-modal Vision
• Machine Learning: Multimodal Learning
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Mining multimedia, multimodal, multilingual, cross-lingual Web data
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and multi-modal RAG
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

White light endoscopy is the clinical gold standard for detecting diseases in the gastrointestinal tract. Most applications involve identifying visual abnormalities in tissue color, texture, and shape. Unfortunately, the contrast of these features is often subtle, causing many clinically relevant cases to go undetected. To overcome this challenge, we introduce Multi-contrast Laser Endoscopy (MLE): a platform for widefield clinical imaging with rapidly tunable spectral, coherent, and directional illumination. We demonstrate three capabilities of MLE: enhancing tissue chromophore contrast with multispectral diffuse reflectance, quantifying blood flow using laser speckle contrast imaging, and characterizing mucosal topography using photometric stereo. We validate MLE with benchtop models, then demonstrate MLE in vivo during clinical colonoscopies. MLE images from 31 polyps demonstrate an approximate three-fold improvement in contrast and a five-fold improvement in color difference compared to white light and narrow band imaging. With the ability to reveal multiple complementary types of tissue contrast while seamlessly integrating into the clinical environment, MLE shows promise as an investigative tool to improve gastrointestinal imaging.

Problem

• Enhancing subtle tissue contrast in gastrointestinal imaging
• Quantifying blood flow and mucosal topography clinically
• Improving detection of gastrointestinal diseases beyond white light

Innovation

• Multi-contrast Laser Endoscopy for enhanced imaging
• Rapidly tunable spectral and coherent illumination
• Combines multispectral, speckle, and photometric techniques