A practical, digital dermoscopic imaging system will be developed for the reliable, non-invasive, early diagnosis of melanoma. This system will provide an objective and user-friendly tool to assist health care providers in diagnosing melanoma. Phase 1 produced two very important results: 1. The feasibility of a new paradigm for reliable, automatic diagnosis of early melanoma was demonstrated. It combines wavelet-based multi-scale statistical parameters, that quantify textures of dermoscopic images, with other, non-wavelet parameters reported by us in the literature. Significantly improved differentiation between early melanoma and its benign simulants is achieved thereby. 2. The feasibility of using well calibrated, multispectral, dermoscopic lesion images for automated lesion segmentation, feature extraction and classification was established.
The specific aims of Phase 2 are: (l) Further develop the image database for training and more comprehensive testing of our diagnostic methods. (2) Analyze parametrically the dependence of performance of the proposed lesion classification methods on the spectral illumination bands, spatial resolution, and dynamic range of the imaging system. (3) Design and build six commercial prototypes. (4) Clinically test these prototypes at four major clinical centers.
This imaging system could become standard instrumentation in the offices of dermatologists and health care delivery facilities for melanoma screening, monitoring of suspicious pigmented lesions, and as an aid in their diagnosis. Also, the database developed during Phase 2, and beyond, will be an important medical resource for the health-care community.
| Elbaum, M; Kopf, A W; Rabinovitz, H S et al. (2001) Automatic differentiation of melanoma from melanocytic nevi with multispectral digital dermoscopy: a feasibility study. J Am Acad Dermatol 44:207-18 |
