A compact optical system using LED and CMOS image sensor for liver function analysis

This paper presents a portable and compact optical device which can conveniently be used to perform a functional analysis of human liver function. The proposed system employed red/green LEDs, as a light source, and CMOS image sensor, which is commonly used in cellular phones. With this system, several blood serum samples have been evaluated for liver functional analysis by measuring light absorption level through the blood serum samples depending on aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and total bilirubin concentration. The light absorption through the blood serum samples containing AST, ALT, or total bilirubin can provide their concentrations. The green light absorption is more sensitive to the concentration of AST or ALT, and the red light absorption is more sensitive to the total bilirubuin concentration. Additional calibration steps were performed by using a MATLAB program in order to eliminate the light scattering effects from the extraneous particles existing in each blood serum sample. From the blind test, three standard light intensity curves through each enzyme have been obtained and the enzyme concentration values have been compared to those obtained from a commercially available biochemistry analyzer (Toshiba 200 FR). The average percent difference in the obtained concentrations from two systems for AST, ALT, and total bilirubin concentration came out to be 7.79%, 7.98%. and 7.56%, respectively, with the adjusted coefficient of determination (R²) higher than 0.98. This system can possibly lead to a low-cost and simple system that can be used as a point-of-care (POC) system in a condition without advanced equipments.