Functional infrared imaging for skin-cancer screening

Abstract

Annually 133.000 people world-wide get sick on malign melanoma, tendency increasing. The purpose of this study is the early diagnosis of malignant skin cancer. At the moment the dermatologists are screening for anomalies at the relevant lesion by examining the skin area with a microscope. To determine changes, another scan has to be taken in a follow-up session after a time period of about 15-20 weeks. Today's visual diagnostic decision is based on the pragmatic ABCD approach (Asymmetry, Border, Colour, and Diameter). However, there is no adequate and sound non-invasive way to find out, if a skin spot is either malign or benign. If the visual approach corroborates a suspicion of skin cancer, histology is needed to make explicit diagnosis. To avoid unnecessary surgeries (on false positive alarm) and to initiate necessary surgeries in early stages a new diagnostic screening approach is presented here. Based on the fact that malign melanoma have higher metabolism as well as increased blood flow, it has been conjectured that malign melanoma have slightly higher temperature compared to the healthy skin that can be measured by high resolution functional infrared imaging.