Twente Medical Optics perfusion imager makes blood flow visible

21 Oct 2025

€1 million in European funding will help bring handheld medical device to market.

A consortium of regional companies and the University of Twente has received a grant of €1 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to help move a handheld blood-flow imaging device to market.

Developed by Twente Medical Optics, the device is intended to assist doctors in treating burns and in operations to repair damaged tissue, for example after cancer surgery.

Twente Medical Optics, spun out from the University in 2024, was created to build on research in the Biomedical Photonic Imaging group on using light to visualize processes in the body without needing to cut into the patient.

"The unique thing about this device is that it is compact and wireless, so it can be held in the hand," said Twente Medical Optics CSO Wiendelt Steenbergen.

"Unlike existing devices, which are very bulky, it can easily be used in all kinds of situations, on all kinds of body locations. We hope that this will eventually lead to better treatment, with fewer complications."

The device, named HAPI for handheld laser perfusion imager, is based around laser speckle contrast imaging, in which the speckle effect caused by blood cells moving through blood vessels under laser illumination is used to capture details of vascular and arterial flow.

Previous research at Twente into the practicalities of a handheld blood flow imager investigated how movement of the device itself must be accounted for when assessing the recorded data from movement of blood cells. A post-processing procedure developed by the team aims to correct for movement artefacts sufficiently for accurate blood flow to be recorded.

Solving the motion sensitivity problem

"Lasers are susceptible to motion, which is a struggle regarding a handheld device," commented Twente Medical Optics CEO Kiki Liu at the spin-out's 2024 launch.

"The hand's natural movement, even if you try to hold it very still, will decrease the accuracy of the diagnosis and the quality of the image. In the past seven or eight years, we developed hardware and software that work together to solve the motion sensitivity problem."

HAPI is intended to assist clinicians in scenarios such as burn care, where rapid assessment of the need for surgery is key to reducing unnecessary procedures and hospital stays. The device will also be of value in flap reconstruction surgeries, where adequate blood perfusion is essential for successful surgery outcomes and requires accurate monitoring.

Looking ahead, HAPI also shows potential for monitoring diabetic foot ulcers and other conditions where precise perfusion measurement is critical. This technology is set to benefit surgeons, wound care specialists, and healthcare providers by enhancing diagnostic accuracy and improving patient care.

"Our aim is to realize and commercialize a compact and easy to use handheld and wireless implementation of laser speckle contrast imaging," Wiendelt Steenbergen commented to Optics.org. "The technology must help surgeons to make better decisions, for example in the case of burns, or plastic surgery involving free flap such as DIEP flap breast reconstruction surgery."