Developing an optical fiber reflectance spectrometer to monitor bilirubinemia in neonates

摘要

The paper presents the basics underlying development of an optical fiber spectrometer for measurement of skin bilirubin in new-born infants. It is possible to directly deduce the bilirubin levels in the skin using first principles of optical transport, rather than relying on a calibration study in a test population of neonatal subjects where optical measurements are correlated with laboratory serum levels of bilirubin. The optical method reported here measures cutaneous bilirubin despite variations in fibrillar development of the dermis, epidermal melanin content, or cutaneous blood content