English

Label-Free Intraoperative Imaging of Hemodynamics using Deep Learning

Medical Physics 2025-10-20 v2

Abstract

Intraoperative visualization of hemodynamics is crucial for accurate diagnosis and informed surgical decision-making. In neurosurgery, indocyanine green fluorescence imaging (ICG-FI) is the gold standard for assessing blood flow and identifying vascular structures. However, it is limited by time-consuming data acquisition, mandatory waiting periods, potential allergic reactions, and operational complexities. Label-free alternatives, such as laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) and white light imaging (WLI), offer real-time vascular assessment but cannot resolve arterial-venous differentiation or blood flow direction determination. To address these challenges, we present a label-free cross-modal generation framework to synthesize mean transition time (MTT) maps from LSCI and WLI. MTT maps encode local hemodynamics, enabling artery-vein differentiation and flow direction inference. Experimental validation in rat brains demonstrates that the proposed method presents clear vasculature delineation, accurate artery-vein differentiation, and reliable blood flow direction decoding, while reducing total imaging time by 95.8% compared to conventional ICG protocols. This approach offers a fast, efficient, and contrast-free solution for continuous intraoperative surgical guidance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.16039,
  title  = {Label-Free Intraoperative Imaging of Hemodynamics using Deep Learning},
  author = {Yan Shi and Denghui Zhao and Jingyi Yu and Wei Ni and Pengcheng Li and Yun Gu and Peng Miao and Shanbao Tong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.16039},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:10:48.241Z