Differential Diagnosis of Skin Tumors Using Tumor Microcirculation

Abstract

In early diagnosis of pigmented skin tumors, non-invasive techniques are increasingly applied to improve diagnostic certainty. An example of this is epiluminescence microscopy (Katz et al. 1995). Histologic studies have well proved that malignant melanoma are better vascularised than benign nevi (Barnhill et al. 1992; Ribatti et al. 1992, Vacca et al. 1993). In a primary malignant melanoma, there are about twice as many blood vessels as in a benign nevus (Barnhill et al. 1992). Using well established one-dimensional laser Doppler flowmetry, significant differences in perfusion between the tumor margin of malignant melanomas and clinically benign nevus cell nevi have been demonstrated (Tur and Brenner 1992). Highly pigmented tumors however pose the problem that the laser light is absorbed very strongly so that the signal can not be evaluated correctly.