Optical Interferometric Measurement of Skin Vibration for the Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Diseases.

A system has been developed based on the measurement of skin surface vibration which is related to the underlying vascular wall motion for the superficial arteries and coronary movement for the chest wall. Data obtained suggests that the information detected by such measurements can be related to the derivative of the intravascular pressure, an important physiological parameter. These results are in contrast to conventional optical Doppler techniques which have been utilized to measure blood perfusion in the skin layers and blood flow within the superficial arteries. These techniques relied on the interaction between incident photons and moving red blood cells. The present system uses an optical interferometer with a 633 nm HeNe laser to detect μm displacements of the skin surface. A photodiode detects an optical Doppler shift signal of frequency, 2 v/ lambda, where v and lambda are the skin vibration velocity and the wavelength of the laser, respectively. The electronic processing system we developed enhances, cleans and processes the raw Doppler signal to produce two main outputs: Doppler audio, and a time domain profile of the skin velocity. The audio signal changes its tone according to the velocity of skin movement which is related to the first derivative of the intravascular pressure, and the internal structure of the intervening tissue layers between the vessel and the surface. The results obtained demonstrated that the skin velocity waveforms near each artery and the chest signals at the auscultation points for the four heart valve sounds were unique in their profiles. It also proved to be possible to measure the magnitude, harmonics, and the cardiovascular propagation delay for pulse waves. The theoretical and experimental results demonstrated that the system detected the skin velocity, which is related to the time derivative of the pressure. It also reduces the loading effect on the pulsation signals and heart sounds produced by the conventional piezoelectric vibration sensors. The system sensitivity, which could potentially be optimized further was 366.2 mum/sec for the present research. Overall, optical cardiovascular vibrometry has the potential to become a simple non invasive approach to cardiovascular screening.