Methods and apparatus for intraoperative assessment of parathyroid gland vascularity using laser speckle contrast imaging and applications of same

An apparatus for intraoperative assessment of parathyroid gland viability in a surgery, comprising:

• a light source for emitting a beam of light;
• a diffuser coupled to the light source for diffusing the beam of light onto a tissue surface of a parathyroid gland of a patient to illuminate the tissue surface;
• a detector for acquiring images of the illuminated tissue surface, wherein each of the acquired images comprises a speckle pattern;
• and
• a controller arranged to operate the detector to acquire the images of the illuminated tissue surface, receive the acquired images from the detector, and process the acquired images to obtain speckle contrast images for the intraoperative assessment of parathyroid gland viability.