Apparatus and method for detecting nir fluorescence at sentinel lymph node

A device for detecting near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence at a sentinel lymph node (SLN), the device comprising:

• a white light source configured to irradiate white light onto an object;
• a near-infrared (NIR) excitation light source configured to irradiate near-infrared (NIR) excitation light onto the object;
• an optical analyzing assembly configured to transmit white reflection light reflected off the object when the white light is irradiated on the object and near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence reflected off the object when the near-infrared (NIR) excitation light is irradiated on the object;
• a multispectral image processing unit configured to detect the white reflection light and the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence, transmitted from the optical analyzing assembly, and process the white reflection light and the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence as a visible (VIS) reflection light image signal and a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence image signal, respectively;
• and
• a display unit configured to output a composite image obtained by combining the visible (VIS) reflection light image signal and the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence image signal, processed by the multispectral image processing unit,
• wherein the multispectral image processing unit performs image processing so that the visible (VIS) reflection light image signal is expressed by red (R), green (G), and blue (B),
• wherein the a frame rate of the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence image signal is lowered than a frame rate of a frame timing plus while the visible (VIS) reflection light image signal is maintained with red (R), green (G) and blue (B).