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The detection of alterations in the microcirculation requires both the measurement of the blood-flow and the measurement of the oxygen saturation in whole blood. The basis for the non-invasive estimation of the oxygen saturation is the difference between extinction-spectra of hemoglobin and of oxyhemoglobin. Further in whole blood the scattering at the erythrocytes has to be taken into account. In principle spectral measurements at three neighboring wavelengths are sufficient for the calculation of the oxygen saturation, the concentration- thickness-geometry product and the scattering intensity. Caused by the maximal permissible exposure, the signal/noise ratio is very low in fundus reflectometry. But if the wavelength- range from 520 nm to 620 nm is evaluated, the requirement at the signal/noise ratio is reduced. This reduction corresponds to the square root of the number of discrete wavelengths at which the ocular fundus reflectance is measured. So the oxygen saturation can be calculated with an error lower than +/- 4%. For this purpose the extinction spectrum of whole blood is approximated by a model, including besides the above mentioned unknowns the spectral dependency of the scattering. The experimental arrangement for the measurement of the oxygen saturation is an imaging ophthalmo-spectrometer which allows reflectance measurements with a good spectral (< 3 nm) and local (> 3 micrometers ) resolution simultaneously at a vessel and in its neighborhood. The extinction of blood is calculated as the logarithm of the ratio of the reflectance of the neighborhood and of the vessel. In this calculation the influences of the ocular media, of the background and of eye movements are eliminated. The sensitivity of the detector system has to be very high in order to detect the light which is reflected at a dark background and travels through the blood. The new method was tested by a comparison the oxygen saturation of the blood in an arteriole and a venule in the brain of a piglet measured by reflectometry with the oxygen saturation of the left ventricular and the venous blood measured by a laboratory hemoximeter. First results of the measurement of the oxygen saturation in human retinal vessels are demonstrated.
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