Portable Subcutaneous Vein Imaging System

Abstract

In medical domain, the identification and detection of veins is necessary for certain clinical procedures such as venipuncture and intra-venous applications. Vein imaging is also essential for diagnosis of vascular diseases. The current existing modalities for Vein Imaging are highly expensive and bulky. Thus a portable, cost-efficient Vein imaging system is proposed in this paper to view and locate subcutaneous veins. The system comprises of an IR Camera which has been fabricated with NIR LED’s of 880nm wavelength. The NIR LED’s are used as they provide better contrast and visibility of veins in the images at 880nm wavelength compared to other IR LED’s. Real time imaging of veins is acquired, processed using a program written in computer vision and displayed on the Laptop. Screenshot of vein images obtained are assessed through a pilot study for 96 subjects based on age, gender and complexion using the Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software. The vein images obtained are clinically validated by doctors. It can be concluded that the proposed system found to be useful for real-time clinical procedures.