Abstract
The effective and non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer is a hot topic, since biopsy is a costly and time-consuming surgical procedure. As skin relief is an important biophysical feature that can be difficult to perceive with the naked eye and by touch, we developed a novel 3D imaging scanner based on fringe projection to obtain morphological parameters of skin lesions related to perimeter, area and volume with micrometric precision. We measured 608 samples and significant morphological differences were found between melanomas and nevi (p<0.001). The capacity of the 3D scanner to distinguish these lesions was supported by a supervised machine learning algorithm resulting in 80.0% sensitivity and 76.7% specificity.
Highlights
The incidence of skin cancer increases every year, it is crucial to diagnose and treat it effectively
The World Health Organization estimates that 60,000 people die every year from skin cancer: 48,000 from melanoma, its most aggressive form, and 12,000 from other types [1]
Three-dimensional (3D) technology can be used to retrieve topographic information of cutaneous lesions, producing a height map of the lesion’s surface from which parameters of area, volume and texture can be calculated. 3D techniques can be mechanical and optical, but they are mainly classified into two categories: ex-vivo techniques, which measure skin indirectly from a replica; and in-vivo techniques [8]
Summary
The incidence of skin cancer increases every year, it is crucial to diagnose and treat it effectively. In order to facilitate dermoscopic diagnosis and to spotlight the warning signs of the most common type of melanoma, the ܧܦܥܤܣcriteria were proposed: ܣis for asymmetry, ܤfor border irregularity, ܥfor color, D for diameter and ܧfor evolution [2] These methods result in a significant number of false positives. The only imaging modality whose acquisition is fast enough for in-vivo applications while retrieving quantitative information on surface heights is fringe projection, which is based on the triangulation measuring principle combined with light intensity modulation using sinusoidal functions [10]. The first two methods produce only a visual distribution of texture, whereas fringe projection retrieves a height map that can contribute to the accuracy for the detection of non-melanoma skin cancer [11] and to the assessment of the 3D changes in patient’s body during radiotherapy [12], among other applications
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