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Application of diffuse optical back reflection spectroscopy for determining articular cartilage thickness in a clinical setting

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Abstract

Purpose

Develop a spectroscopic method to assess cartilage thickness during the arthroscopic examination.

Methods

Currently, arthroscopy assesses cartilage damage visually; outcomes are based on the surgeon’s subjective experience. Light reflection spectroscopy is a promising method for measuring cartilage thickness based on the absorption of light by the subchondral bone. In the presented study, in vivo diffuse optical back reflection spectroscopic measurements were acquired by gently placing an optical fibre probe on different locations of the articular cartilage of 50 patients during complete knee replacement surgery. The optical fibre probe consists of two optical fibers with a diameter of 1 mm to deliver the light and detect back-reflected light from the cartilage. Centre to centre distance between the source and the detector fibers was 2.4 mm. Actual thicknesses of the articular cartilage samples were measured under microscopy using histopathological staining.

Results

Using half of the samples in the patient data, a linear regression model was formed to estimate cartilage thicknesses from the spectroscopic measurements. The regression model was then used to predict the cartilage thickness in the second half of the data. The cartilage thickness was predicted with a mean error of 8.7% if the actual thickness was less than 2.5 mm (R2 = 0.97).

Conclusion

The outer diameter of the optical fibre probe was 3 mm, which can fit into the arthroscopy channel and can be used to measure the cartilage thickness in real-time during the arthroscopic examination of the articular cartilage.

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Data availability

The authors declare no availability of data and materials.

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Funding

This study was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey Grant (Grant No 115S474) and partly by the Akdeniz University Scientific Research Grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Optics Research Unit, Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Akdeniz University, Room F1-18, Konyaaltı, Antalya, 07070, Turkey

    Yiğit Ali Üncü, Birce Gümüş, Serkan Uslu & Murat Canpolat

  2. Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Medicine, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Özlem Özbey Ünlü & İsmail Üstünel

  3. Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, Antalya Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Science, Antalya, Turkey

    Çağrı Turgut

  4. Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, School of Medicine, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Yetkin Söyüncü

  5. Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, School of Medicine, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Uğur Bilge

Authors
  1. Yiğit Ali Üncü
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  2. Özlem Özbey Ünlü
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  3. Birce Gümüş
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  4. Serkan Uslu
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  5. Çağrı Turgut
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  6. Yetkin Söyüncü
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  7. Uğur Bilge
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  8. İsmail Üstünel
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  9. Murat Canpolat
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Contributions

Y.A.Ü.: investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft. Ö.Ö.Ü.: methodology, investigation, data curation, writing – original draft. B.G., S.U., Ç.T., Y.S.: clinical examination, conceptualization—original draft. U.B.: data curation, writing—review and editing. İ.Ö.: investigation, data curation—original draft. M.C.: investigation, conceptualization, writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Murat Canpolat.

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Üncü, Y.A., Ünlü, Ö.Ö., Gümüş, B. et al. Application of diffuse optical back reflection spectroscopy for determining articular cartilage thickness in a clinical setting. International Orthopaedics (SICOT) 47, 2515–2521 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-023-05857-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-023-05857-z

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