Abstract
Approximately 34% of people with diabetes will experience a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) at some point throughout their lifetime. The perfusion of oxygen to the DFU is critical for promoting wound healing and closure. However, complications from diabetes can compromise the oxygenated flow to the wound site. Techniques such as transcutaneous oximetry and laser Doppler imaging have been used to assess perfusion to DFUs at discrete point-locations in the peri-wound. Widearea measurements of temporal oxygenation changes, as an indirect measure of perfusion, can provide additional insight of the oxygenated flow in the (peri-)wound and background tissue. Herein, our objective is to assess the differences in oxygenation flow patterns in and around the DFU regions and in the feet of control subjects as a potential biomarker for monitoring wound healing. Breath-holding (BH), as a stimulus, holds the potential to induce oxygenated flow pattern changes in the presence of wounds. In this study, 10 DFU and 3 control subjects were imaged using a hand-held nearinfrared optical scanner (NIROS). Spatial-temporal oxygenation maps of hemoglobin-based parameters were acquired across an 120-second paradigm with 20 seconds of breath-hold. The oxygenation flow patterns obtained from Pearson'sbased correlation maps across controls, healing DFU, and non-healing DFU indicated that flow patterns varied distinctly. Ongoing work is to correlate oxygenated flow patterns to clinical assessment of healing status in DFUs.
