Analysis of skin morphological features and real-time monitoring using snapshot hyperspectral imaging.

Qinghua He,Ruikang K Wang

doi:10.1364/boe.10.005625

Abstract

We propose a snapshot hyperspectral imaging system and methods for skin morphological feature analysis and real-time monitoring of skin activities. The analysis method includes a strategy using weighted subtractions between sub-channel images to extract absorption information due to specific chromophores within skin tissue, for example hemoglobin and melanin. Based on morphological analysis results, we carry out real-time monitoring of the skin features to verify the ability of this method to provide temporal responses of the skin tissue activities, which is experimentally shown to be useful in the measurement of heartrate, monitoring of the tissue recovery after a body exercise, and studying of the tissue response due to a vascular occlusion. Compared to conventional multispectral imaging system, the proposed system improves the device simplicity and is immune to motion artifacts. Coupled with the extraction algorithms, the hyperspectral imaging promises a robust skin assessment tool with abilities for qualitative visualization and potentially quantitative analysis of skin features, useful in the applications of cosmetics and clinical dermatology.

Highlights

Being the most superficial and largest organ in the human body, the skin is closely related to individual physical health
We have demonstrated that the skin features can be described with light absorptions caused by chromophores, making themselves distinguishable from each other, which would be useful for quantitative monitoring if needed
The results clearly demonstrated the variations of the skin blood information content and SaO2 under outside pressures, which shows a useful capability of the snapshot hyperspectral imaging system in vascular occlusion monitoring

Summary

Introduction

Being the most superficial and largest organ in the human body, the skin is closely related to individual physical health. The appearance of skin can directly impact personal social and emotional wellbeing [4]. The anomalous appearance of chromophore contents, including hemoglobin and melanin, has been often used as the target in the analysis of the skin features [5]. In clinical diagnosis, dermatologists mainly recognize and assess skin features with the naked eyes [6]. The naked-eye assessment highly depends on the color perception and sensitivity of human eyes, which may be confounded by both the discernments among the assessors and various complexion basements of patients [7]. Notwithstanding the concern on this vulnerability, objective analysis is sometimes required in clinical assessments like quantitative diagnosis and prognosis [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion