Hyperspectral Imaging in the Medical Field: Present and Future

Abstract

Hyperspectral imaging is an optical method that provides a large amount of information about the investigated object. Its medical applications are reviewed in this article, including tumor delimitation and identification, assessing tissue perfusion and its pathological conditions (including some complications like diabetic foot ulceration), making accurate surgical decisions, evaluating the health of dental structures, etc. Many of the articles show very promising results that required brief comments by the authors. It is clear that choosing the appropriate hyperspectral imaging system for each medical field, together with the most reliable hyperspectral image processing methods, are the main goals of future studies, before hyperspectral imaging becomes a widely applicable evaluation method in medicine. The authors try to answer some questions on this topic and set up some directions for future research.