Low Cost Prototype for Viewing a Map of Vascularization

Abstract

Vascular access is the most common invasive medical procedure. Blood is a very good approach for a physician to assess the health of a patient. For obtaining blood samples, it is necessary to access the venous system. The overwhelming majority of vascular access procedures are performed without visualizing the venous system and instead rely on what specialists can see through the skin of the patient or the ability of the clinician to feel the vessel, which occurs practically by assumption and with hard work. This intervention can be quite traumatic, especially among children. Interest in the medical and scientific community to facilitate an intervention that reduces patient discomfort has been demonstrated by the development of devices that help visualize the vein map of the patient.

To help solve this problem, a prototype based on infrared light is proposed. An infrared light source will be provided by 100 IR LEDs. Image acquisition of the patient’s skin surface will be collected with a webcam that was modified in advance. The acquired images will be post-processed to ensure a better level of accuracy. This device will use infrared light to illuminate the patient’s skin, thus revealing the veins under the skin like a map.

Due to the uniqueness of blood vessel networks, vein maps are often used in biometrics. They are also used to identify a person through a process similar to fingerprint-based identification.