Non-contact measurement of oxygen saturation with an RGB camera.

A novel method (Sophia) is presented to track oxygen saturation changes in a controlled environment using an RGB camera placed approximately 1.5 m away from the subject. The method is evaluated on five healthy volunteers (Fitzpatrick skin phenotypes II, III, and IV) whose oxygen saturations were varied between 80% and 100% in a purpose-built chamber over 40 minutes each.

Continuous non-contact vital sign monitoring in neonatal intensive care unit.

Current technologies to allow continuous monitoring of vital signs in pre-term infants in the hospital require adhesive electrodes or sensors to be in direct contact with the patient. These can cause stress, pain, and also damage the fragile skin of the infants. It has been established previously that the colour and volume changes in superficial blood vessels during the cardiac cycle can be measured using a digital video camera and ambient light, making it possible to obtain estimates of heart rate or breathing rate.

Non-contact video-based vital sign monitoring using ambient light and auto-regressive models.

Remote sensing of the reflectance photoplethysmogram using a video camera typically positioned 1 m away from the patient's face is a promising method for monitoring the vital signs of patients without attaching any electrodes or sensors to them. Most of the papers in the literature on non-contact vital sign monitoring report results on human volunteers in controlled environments. We have been able to obtain estimates of heart rate and respiratory rate and preliminary results on changes in oxygen saturation from double-monitored patients undergoing haemodialysis in the Oxford Kidney Unit.

Accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology in the pathological typing of non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: Histological typing of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has an increasing clinical relevance due to the emerging differences in medical treatment between squamous and nonsquamous tumors. However, most NSCLCs are diagnosed in an advanced stage, and the diagnosis is often obtained exclusively by cytology either exfoliative or following fine needle aspiration. We investigated the accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in NSCLC typing as compared with histology.

Can misdiagnosis in pre-operative FNAC of thyroid nodule influence surgical treatment?

Background: Pre-operative cytology in thyroid disease remains the most appropriate diagnostic test for defining the nature of a thyroid nodule before surgical excision.

Materials And Methods: We selected the most recent 825 surgical thyroid procedures performed in our institution from January 2004 to June 2007; 776 were total thyroidectomies, 23 were lobe-isthmectomies, and 26 were radical neck dissections. We distributed the data based on pre-operative cytology.