Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy as a monitoring tool for gastric mucosal devitalization treatments with argon plasma coagulation

Electrosurgery with argon plasma coagulation is a widespread technique used in various medical fields for applications which range from hemostasis to devitalization processes. Developing tools which provide feedback concerning tissue condition during these surgeries is fundamental for improving the safety and success of this treatment. We present here a method based on diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to monitor gastric mucosal devitalization treatments. The analysis of the diffusely reflected spectra of the tissue allows us to differentiate between ablation states by using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) as a classification algorithm. An ex vivo pilot study on several swine stomachs showed promising results, with 97.8% of correctly classified ablation states on a new unseen stomach, encouraging further tests with human tissue. [Image: see text]