Rapid point-of-care Hemoglobin measurement through low-cost optics and Convolutional Neural Network based validation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-cost, portable hemoglobin measurement device that uses optical sensors and CNN-based image validation to ensure sample quality, achieving accuracy comparable to medical-grade instruments and enabling better rural healthcare.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, integrated platform combining low-cost optics with CNN-based validation for rapid, accurate hemoglobin measurement and sample quality assessment.

Findings

Precision of 0.18 g/dL in hemoglobin measurement

97% accuracy in detecting poorly-prepared samples

R^2 = 0.945 correlation with literature absorption curves

Abstract

A low-cost, robust, and simple mechanism to measure hemoglobin would play a critical role in the modern health infrastructure. Consistent sample acquisition has been a long-standing technical hurdle for photometer-based portable hemoglobin detectors which rely on micro cuvettes and dry chemistry. Any particulates (e.g. intact red blood cells (RBCs), microbubbles, etc.) in a cuvette's sensing area drastically impact optical absorption profile, and commercial hemoglobinometers lack the ability to automatically detect faulty samples. We present the ground-up development of a portable, low-cost and open platform with equivalent accuracy to medical-grade devices, with the addition of CNN-based image processing for rapid sample viability prechecks. The developed platform has demonstrated precision to the nearest $0.18[g/dL]$ of hemoglobin, an R^2 = 0.945 correlation to hemoglobin absorption curves reported in literature, and a 97% detection accuracy of poorly-prepared samples. We see the developed hemoglobin device/ML platform having massive implications in rural medicine, and consider it an excellent springboard for robust deep learning optical spectroscopy: a currently untapped source of data for detection of countless analytes.