Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) in Acute Mesenteric Ischemia to Detect Intestinal Perfusion Deficits.

BACKGROUND: Acute mesenteric ischemia is a life-threatening acute condition, which requires an interdisciplinary approach, including vascular recanalization and surgical treatment. Visual evaluation of intestinal perfusion might be misleading, and therefore, additional tools are necessary to reliably be able to resect the ischemic intestine. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has been shown to be feasible and safe for real-time assessment of tissue perfusion in visceral surgery but has never been used in cases of acute mesenteric ischemia. Therefore, we applied HSI in acute mesenteric ischemia to evaluate it for potential aid in the objectively discriminating ischemic and well-perfused intestine during explorative laparotomy. METHODS: We recorded HSI measurements in 11 cases of acute mesenteric ischemia during explorative laparotomy. We evaluated the recorded images for macroscopic visual perfusion quality and divided it into three groups. Of those three groups, we calculated and compared the HSI indexes of tissue saturation, near-infrared perfusion index, organ hemoglobin index, and tissue water index, as well as the reflectance spectra. RESULTS: We found significant differences in tissue saturation (0.7% versus 0.45%; P = 0.002) and near-infrared perfusion index (0.58 versus 0.23; P < 0.001) in poorly perfused intestinal segments compared with the viable intestine. Furthermore, we could detect an increasing peak at 630 nm of the reflectance spectra in less viable tissues, indicating a maximum in necrotic tissues. We attributed this peak to an increase in met-hemoglobin content in necrotic tissues, which is supported by the increase in the HSI organ hemoglobin index. CONCLUSIONS: HSI is able to discriminate tissue perfusion in acute mesenteric ischemia reliably and therefore might be helpful for resection. In addition, HSI gives information on tissue viability via reflectance spectra.