Evaluation of Hyperspectral Imaging Fusion for in-vivo Brain Tumor Identification and Delineation

The purpose of this paper is to outline the advances in hyperspectral (HS) image fusion for intraoperative delineation of brain tumor tissue. HS images were acquired using an intraoperative acquisition system based on two push-broom HS cameras, one covering the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) [400–1000 nm] and the other the near-infrared (NIR) [900–1700 nm] spectral range. A dataset of a wide range of in-vivo brain cancer acquired during neurosurgical procedures with both HS cameras was used to compare the performance results of using the VNIR and NIR data, independently and combining the VNIR-NIR data. Classification maps obtained using the fused VNIR-NIR images provide more accurate classification, removing false positives that appear when the VNIR and NIR images are processed independently.