Mueller matrix imaging polarimetry technique for dengue fever detection

Abstract

Dengue fever is one of the most common diseases in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, and has a variety of unpleasant and painful symptoms, including fever, bleeding, and even death. Thus, effective methods for its early-stage detection and diagnosis are urgently required. Accordingly, the present study proposes a method for detecting dengue virus through an inspection of the anisotropic polarization properties of blood serum samples, as measured using a backscattering polarimetry technique and Mueller matrix imaging method. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated using 31 real-world blood samples comprising 17 dengue-infected samples and 14 healthy non-dengue samples. It is shown that the values of the diagonal elements of the Mueller matrix for the non-dengue samples are significantly higher than those for the dengue samples. By contrast, the depolarization index of the dengue samples is higher than that of the non-dengue samples. Moreover, among the four Mueller matrix transformation (MMT) parameters considered in the present study (A, B, T and G), three of them (A, B and T) exhibit significant differences between the non-dengue and dengue samples, respectively. Thus, overall, the results indicate that the proposed method has significant potential as a rapid, low-cost, and effective technique for dengue fever diagnosis applications.