# Affordable Shortwave Infrared Spectroscopy for Stroke Risk Screening in Children with Sickle Cell Disease

> **NIH NIH R15** · KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $426,714

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The risk of stroke in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) is enormous, ~300 times higher than healthy children
without SCD and heart disease. Without treatment, ~11% of SCD patients have clinically apparent stroke by
their age of 20 and the risk is the most significant between ages 2 and 5. For stroke prevention, early identification
of abnormal cerebral perfusion is critical to initiating a timely therapeutic intervention. The current standard
screening tool is a transcranial ultrasound doppler (TCD). In high-resource settings, the TCD screening followed
by blood transfusion therapy has reduced the risk of stroke by 92%. Unfortunately, TCD screening is not widely
available due to a high cost and a lack of trained personnel in low resource settings such as sub-Saharan Africa
where most sickle cell patients live. Here we propose to engineer an affordable non-invasive optical technique
that can quantify microvascular cerebral blood flow (CBF) in pediatric sickle cell disease. Specifically, we will
build a speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) system working in the shortwave infrared (SWIR or 2nd
near-infrared, NIR) region for the enhanced depth sensitivity with ×10 higher SNR at a lower cost (×10 less)
compared to the current NIR system. First, we will computationally investigate the high depth-sensitivity of SWIR
SCOS using a multi-layer Monte Carlo simulation on a realistic head model. We will also perform experimental
verification using a benchtop SWIR SCOS system comprising a SWIR long-coherence laser and an off-the-shelf
InGaAs camera. The benchmark tests will be performed against NIR SCOS to characterize SNR, depth
sensitivity and accuracy on fabricated microfluidic channels mimicking layered microvascular networks. Next, we
will explore the feasibility of a portable SWIR SCOS system using a low-cost Germanium-based SWIR camera
and validate the developed protype by measuring CBF of healthy adults undergoing a hypercapnic challenge.
 The scientific goal of this proposal is to study the SWIR range for SCOS enabling assessment of deeper
tissue microvascular blood flow. The SWIR optical transmission window has several advantages over the NIR
range (700-900nm) including lower tissue optical attenuation, more photon numbers per unit energy and higher
maximum permissible exposure to skin. With these benefits, SWIR has been explored in many optical imaging
and spectroscopic techniques including fluorescence or photoacoustic imaging, and diffuse reflectance
spectroscopies but not yet in SCOS. The higher depth-sensitivity will mitigate signal contamination from the
extracerebral layers (i.e. skull/scalp), contributing to more accurate estimation of cerebral blood flow. The
proposed research will create a prototype of a portable deep tissue flowmeter ready for a clinical pilot study in
children with sickle cell disease. In the long-term, this device may address the paucity of neuroimaging modalities
in the low-resource setting...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10730967
- **Project number:** 1R15EB034986-01
- **Recipient organization:** KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Seung Yup Lee
- **Activity code:** R15 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $426,714
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-09-21 → 2026-09-20

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10730967

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10730967, Affordable Shortwave Infrared Spectroscopy for Stroke Risk Screening in Children with Sickle Cell Disease (1R15EB034986-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10730967. Licensed CC0.

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