Our primary concern revolves around end users: patients facing sepsis, a condition necessitating prompt and accurate detection and treatment. Globally, an estimated 49M sepsis cases contribute to over 11M deaths annually. Currently, in clinical setting, there are very limited opportunities for doctors to evaluate blood microcirculation on ongoing basis. Although several companies have attempted to develop portable multispectral imaging systems to quantify skin mottling, they are not convenient to use and costly. An optimal device for monitoring microcirculatory impairments should be non-invasive, portable, and suitable for patients’ bedside use.

Our solution is a software-powered medical imaging device that helps to detect visually the blood microcirculation and oxygen depletion associated with early signs of sepsis. It enables ICU staff to assess treatment process, make a prompt decision to adjust antibiotics course (as each idle hour decreases survival rate), thus reducing probability of mortality. Sepsiscan presents a compact multimodal imaging device with a dual-modality camera system. The device involves a single-snapshot mosaic-type camera for fast acquisition of hyper-spectral imaging (HSI) data and a thermal camera for skin temperature measurements. Sepsiscan technology is based on the acquisition of multiple images within relatively narrow non-overlapping spectral bands, resulting in a spatial skin oxygen saturation distribution map. In the visible wavelength range, the main tissue absorbers are melanin, oxy- and deoxy-haemoglobin. Assessing the concentrations of these chromophores can be used for skin mottling analysis. In addition, infrared thermal imaging is also used analysis for evaluating skin temperature distribution that reflects the skin microcirculation heterogeneity. By using appropriate image processing algorithms, it is possible to fuse dynamic thermographic images with HSI maps, revealing a better view of skin circulation. The technology has been implemented portable device in prototype, with which it is possible to perform real-time patient examinations.