Capillaries are the smallest vessels in the body responsible for delivering oxygen and nutrients to surrounding cells. Various life-threatening diseases are known to alter the density of healthy capillaries and the flow velocity of erythrocytes within the capillaries. In previous studies, capillary density and flow velocity were manually assessed by trained specialists. However, manual analysis of a standard 20-second microvascular video requires 20 minutes on average and necessitates extensive training. Thus, manual analysis has been reported to hinder the application of microvascular microscopy in a clinical environment. To address this problem, this paper presents a fully automated state-of-the-art system to quantify skin nutritive capillary density and red blood cell velocity captured by handheld-based microscopy videos. The proposed method combines the speed of traditional computer vision algorithms with the accuracy of convolutional neural networks to enable clinical capillary analysis. The results show that the proposed system fully automates capillary detection with an accuracy exceeding that of trained analysts and measures several novel microvascular parameters that had eluded quantification thus far, namely, capillary hematocrit and intracapillary flow velocity heterogeneity. The proposed end-to-end system, named CapillaryNet, can detect capillaries at $\sim$0.9 seconds per frame with $\sim$93\% accuracy. The system is currently being used as a clinical research product in a larger e-health application to analyse capillary data captured from patients suffering from COVID-19, pancreatitis, and acute heart diseases. CapillaryNet narrows the gap between the analysis of microcirculation images in a clinical environment and state-of-the-art systems.
翻译:向周围细胞输送氧气和养分的最小血管是身体中负责向周围细胞提供氧气和养分的最小容器。 已知各种危及生命的疾病会改变毛细血管的密度和红细胞的流速。 在以往的研究中, 受过训练的专家手工评估毛毛密度和流速。 然而, 标准的20秒微血管视频的人工分析平均需要20分钟, 需要进行广泛的培训。 因此, 人工分析据报有碍于临床环境中微血管显微镜的应用。 解决这个问题, 本文展示了一种完全自动化的、 更先进的临床状态系统系统, 以量化皮肤螺旋密度密度和红血细胞的密度。 拟议的方法将传统计算机视觉算法的速度与血管神经神经网络的精度结合起来, 以便进行临床毛细分析。 结果显示, 拟议的系统完全自动化的母细胞检测, 其精度超过经过训练的分析师的直径直径直径, 测量一些新的微血管参数, 无法从心脏直径直径的直径直径直径直径的直径直径直径, 直径直径直径直径直到直径直径直径直径直径直径直径的直的直径直径直径直径直径直径直径直的直的直径直径直的直的直的直直的直的直径直径直径直径直径直的直直直直的直径直径直径直径直的直直直直的直径直径直径直径直径直径直径直径直径直射。 。 。