Funded by NIH, Grant No.: 2R44HL059807-04
Patent No.: US 7,113,817 B1

The Need

According to a recent CDC report, 20.8 million Americans, representing 7% of the US population, have diabetes. An additional 40 million more have blood glucose levels that are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Diabetics often present with nonhealing wounds of the lower extremities. 50% of diabetics with such wounds will eventually require amputation.

The Idea

CW Optics is proposing a reliable and user-friendly Laser Speckle Analysis/Multiple Scattering Imager (LMI) for monitoring tissue perfusion in chronic, nonhealing diabetic wounds. This technology also has potential in other medical applications.

The Science

The new technology allows the retrieval of absolute, quantitative blood velocity information from laser speckle images of tissue. The accuracy of LMI has been demonstrated to be greater than 95%, and has been shown to be a promising technology for routine blood flow measurements. The advantages of the LMI are numerous, and include high sensitivity, real-time monitoring before, during, and after treatment, elimination of subjectivity of observer-based examination, and ease in record-keeping.

The Bottom Line

The estimated cost for treating diabetes in 2002 was $132 billion. The proposed LMI device is simple to use and less expensive than the current devices now in use (LDI). Noninvasive monitoring of tissue perfusion using CW Optics' proposed technology has many large advantages, including a quicker turnaround time and more applications. The technology can extend not only to diabetics, but also has potential in assessing surgical procedures such as flaps, treatment of vascular disease, progression of tumors, and condition of organs for transplant surgery.