Patent ID: 8224425

Claim:
A medical instrument comprising: a first stage optic configured to receive light from tissue of a subject in a region of interest; a spectral separator configured to filter the received light; an imaging sensor configured to receive filtered light from the spectral separator and to generate an image of the region of interest based on the filtered light; a diagnostic protocol module; and a diagnostic processor configured to: instruct the spectral separator to filter the received light into a plurality of spectral bands based on the diagnostic protocol module, instruct the imaging sensor to record a plurality of images of the region of interest based on the diagnostic protocol module, each image of the plurality of images corresponding to a spectral band of the plurality of spectral bands, obtain a hyperspectrally resolved image based on the plurality of images, wherein each image in the plurality of images comprises a plurality of pixels, co-register corresponding pixels in each image in the plurality of images to derive an oxyhemoglobin concentration and a deoxyhemoglobin concentration from each set of co-registered pixels in the plurality of images, and obtain a pseudo-color image based on the hyperspectrally resolved image, wherein the pseudo-color image comprises: (i) a color hue plane that represents a first characteristic in the group consisting of (a) the oxyhemoglobin concentration, (b) the deoxyhemoglobin concentration and (c) a mathematical combination of the oxyhemoglobin concentration and the deoxyhemoglobin concentration, (ii) a color saturation plane that represents a second characteristic in the group consisting of (a) the oxyhemoglobin concentration, (b) the deoxyhemoglobin concentration and (c) a mathematical combination of the oxyhemoglobin concentration and the deoxyhemoglobin concentration, with the proviso that the second characteristic is other than the first characteristic, and (iii) a color intensity plane that represents reflectance in a region that is about 450 nm to about 580 nm.