A near infrared technique for tendon imaging in human hand

Abstract

Tendons are tissues that connect muscles to bone. When muscles contract, tendons pull on bones. This causes parts of the body (such as a finger) to move. Tendon injuries are the second most common injuries of the hand and most injuries are open injuries to the flexor or extensor tendons. After clinical examination, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have proved to be important diagnostic tools. Recently more and more studies have been initiated to define the vein imaging, beside that NIR imaging technique also be used to detect the tendon imaging. In this research, we focus on a background removal method that support to enhance the ratio contrast of tendons on the skin background. Those images are recorded by an optical system that allows to capture the near infrared light imaging of hand at the spectral regions: 740nm, 850 nm and 940 nm. After that we apply a background removal to enhance the ratio contrast of tendon.