ear-infrared imaging of the sinuses: preliminary valuation of a new technology for diagnosing maxillary inusitis

sama Mahmood lbert Cerussi eza Dehdari uoc Nguyen imothy Kelley ruce Tromberg rian Wong niversity of California at Irvine epartment of Biomedical Engineering and epartment of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery eckman Laser Institute 002 Health Sciences Road rvine, California 92612 Abstract. Diagnosing sinusitis remains a challenge for primary care physicians. There is a need for a simple, office-based technique to aid in the diagnosis of sinusitis without the cost and radiation risk of conventional radiologic imaging. We designed a low-cost near-infrared NIR device to transilluminate the maxillary sinuses. The use of NIR light allows for greater interrogation of deep-tissue structures as compared to visible light. NIR imaging of 21 patients was performed and compared with computed tomography CT scans. Individual maxillary sinuses were scored on a scale from 0 to 2 based on their degree of aeration present on CT and similarly based on the NIR signal penetration into the maxilla on NIR images. Our results showed that airfilled and fluid/tissue–filled spaces can be reasonably distinguished by their differing NIR signal penetration patterns, with average NIR imaging scores for fluid-filled maxillary sinuses 0.93±0.78, n=29 significantly lower than those for normal maxillary sinuses 1.62±0.57, n=13 p=0.003 . NIR imaging of the sinuses is a simple, safe, and cost-effective modality that can potentially aid in the diagnosis of sinusitis. Long-term, significant device refinement and large clinical trials will be needed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of this technique. © 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. DOI: 10.1117/1.3431718