A new method of measuring ciliary beat frequency using image processing

Mucociliary clearance of the respiratory tract is one of the important defensive functions of the airway mucous. In this study, the authors developed a new method of measuring ciliary beat frequency (CBF) with high spatial resolution based on the image processing method. Microscopic ciliary images were digitized through an image grabbing board inside a PC, and data necessary for the power spectrum (FFT) analyses were extracted from these gray images by an image subtraction method. By means of FFT analyses, the maximum peak frequencies were found in each divided block of a whole acquired image. Finally using these frequencies, the authors composed frequency maps of various sizes showing the spatial distribution of CBF´s in user specified resolution. The smaller the authors made the size of divided blocks included in analysis, the more detailed regional ciliary beat distributions they could evaluate