Measurement of blood oxygen saturation using a single wavelength photoacoustic Z-scan technique

Albert Kamanzi^1†, Helena Rudolph², Sumit Agrawal², Sri Rajasekhar Kothapalli^2,3 and Chandra S Yelleswarapu^1
1Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125, USA
²Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
³Penn State Cancer institute, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA 17033, USA.

The paper is dedicated to Prof D V G L N Rao

Measuring and monitoring oxygen saturation (SO2) levels in the blood is very important in medicine. Low oxygen levels in the blood is an early warning sign for immediate medical care as it can be related to a wide variety of chronic illnesses, including viral infections. Also, mapping of SO2 values by performing a raster scan across the region of interest in vivo is essential in clinical and research settings, such as evaluating the therapeutic effects of treatment and monitoring wound healing. Conveniently, the two main derivatives of hemoglobin, oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin, work as strong natural optical contrast agents with distinct spectral profiles. The differential optical absorption of oxy- and deoxy hemoglobins has been exploited by non-invasive optical sensing methods, such as pulse oximetry, to quantify blood SO2 levels. However, the accuracy of conventional optical methods is affected by skin color and strong optical scattering of biological tissue. Overcoming the optical scattering limits, photoacoustic imaging has shown great promise in mapping deep tissue SO2 levels. However, bulky and multiwavelength lasers are used in conventional photoacoustic imaging, limiting the portability, affordability and widespread use of the technology. In this work, we quantify the blood oxygen saturation by measuring the nonlinear absorption coefficient (β) of blood samples using a single wavelength photoacoustic Z-scan (PAZ) technique. Results demonstrate a linear dependency between β and blood SO2 levels. In future the PAZ scan could pave the way for many in vivo biomedical applications. © Anita Publications. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Blood oxygenation, Z-scan technique, Photoacoustics, Nonlinear optical studies of blood.

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