Detection theory for accurate and non-invasive skin cancer diagnosis using dynamic thermal imaging

The worldwide incidence of skin cancer has risen rapidly in the last decades, becoming one in three cancers nowadays. Currently, a person has a 4% chance of developing melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer, which causes the greatest number of deaths. In the context of increasing incidence and mortality, skin cancer bears a heavy health and economic burden. Nevertheless, the 5-year survival rate for people with skin cancer significantly improves if the disease is detected and treated early. Accordingly, large research efforts have been devoted to achieve early detection and better understanding of the disease, with the aim of reversing the progressive trend of rising incidence and mortality, especially regarding melanoma. This paper reviews a variety of the optical modalities that have been used in the last years in order to improve non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer, including confocal microscopy, multispectral imaging, three-dimensional topography, optical coherence tomography, polarimetry, self-mixing interferometry, and machine learning algorithms. The basics of each of these technologies together with the most relevant achievements obtained are described, as well as some of the obstacles still to be resolved and milestones to be met.

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Numerical Analysis of Depth and Sizing in Skin Cancer Lesions

Volume 11: Heat Transfer and Thermal Engineering ◽

10.1115/imece2020-24626 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

J. Eliseo B. Regla-Felix ◽

Abel Hernandez-Guerrero ◽

J. Luis Luviano-Ortiz ◽

Tomas Moreno-Torres

Keyword(s):

Skin Cancer ◽

Thermal Behavior ◽

Thermal Imaging ◽

Thermal Response ◽

Recovery Process ◽

Thermal Recovery ◽

World Health ◽

Detection Methods ◽

Infrared Thermal Imaging ◽

Non Invasive

Abstract Melanoma is one of the most common types of skin cancer that afflicts our society. Although melanoma accounts for 1% of the cases of skin cancer, due to its aggressiveness, it is responsible for most skin cancer-related deaths. Each year, approximately 132 000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and just in USA an approximate of 7 230 people will die because of it. Early detection can lead to a significant reduction in melanoma death rates. Nowadays, there are various invasive and non-invasive detection methods of skin cancer. A type of non-invasive method uses an infrared thermal imaging camera, which can detect the difference in thermal behavior between healthy and malignant tissue during the thermal recovery process after a cooling stress applied to the skin. Such a thermal behavior can be simulated computationally, with a good approximation to reported case studies. This study proposes a numerical model that takes advantage of infrared thermal imaging to determine the effect of geometry and depth of the lesion with the cooling and recovery process using Design of Experiments (DoE). The results show that diameter and geometric shape of the lesion are the parameters that most influence the thermal response.

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Non-Invasive Skin Cancer Diagnosis Using Hyperspectral Imaging for In-Situ Clinical Support

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm9061662 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 1662 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Raquel Leon ◽

Beatriz Martinez-Vega ◽

Himar Fabelo ◽

Samuel Ortega ◽

Veronica Melian ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Skin Cancer ◽

Cancer Diagnosis ◽

Skin Lesions ◽

Morphological Processing ◽

Automatic Identification ◽

Routine Practice ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Spectral Bands ◽

Clinical Support

Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide and its early detection its key to achieve an effective treatment of the lesion. Commonly, skin cancer diagnosis is based on dermatologist expertise and pathological assessment of biopsies. Although there are diagnosis aid systems based on morphological processing algorithms using conventional imaging, currently, these systems have reached their limit and are not able to outperform dermatologists. In this sense, hyperspectral (HS) imaging (HSI) arises as a new non-invasive technology able to facilitate the detection and classification of pigmented skin lesions (PSLs), employing the spectral properties of the captured sample within and beyond the human eye capabilities. This paper presents a research carried out to develop a dermatological acquisition system based on HSI, employing 125 spectral bands captured between 450 and 950 nm. A database composed of 76 HS PSL images from 61 patients was obtained and labeled and classified into benign and malignant classes. A processing framework is proposed for the automatic identification and classification of the PSL based on a combination of unsupervised and supervised algorithms. Sensitivity and specificity results of 87.5% and 100%, respectively, were obtained in the discrimination of malignant and benign PSLs. This preliminary study demonstrates, as a proof-of-concept, the potential of HSI technology to assist dermatologists in the discrimination of benign and malignant PSLs during clinical routine practice using a real-time and non-invasive hand-held device.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of CancerLocator: non-invasive cancer diagnosis and tissue-of-origin prediction using methylation profiles of cell-free DNA.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.727438444.793530754 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Chao Cheng

Keyword(s):

Cancer Diagnosis ◽

Invasive Cancer ◽

Cell Free Dna ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Free Dna ◽

Tissue Of Origin

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Computer vision for microscopic skin cancer diagnosis using handcrafted and non‐handcrafted features

Microscopy Research and Technique ◽

10.1002/jemt.23686 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tanzila Saba

Keyword(s):

Computer Vision ◽

Skin Cancer ◽

Cancer Diagnosis

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Non-invasive skin sampling of tryptophan/kynurenine ratio in vitro towards a skin cancer biomarker

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-79903-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Skaidre Jankovskaja ◽

Johan Engblom ◽

Melinda Rezeli ◽

György Marko-Varga ◽

Tautgirdas Ruzgas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Skin Cancer ◽

Relative Increase ◽

Cancer Biomarker ◽

Cancer Diagnostics ◽

Sampling Time ◽

Skin Permeability ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Non Invasive

AbstractThe tryptophan to kynurenine ratio (Trp/Kyn) has been proposed as a cancer biomarker. Non-invasive topical sampling of Trp/Kyn can therefore serve as a promising concept for skin cancer diagnostics. By performing in vitro pig skin permeability studies, we conclude that non-invasive topical sampling of Trp and Kyn is feasible. We explore the influence of different experimental conditions, which are relevant for the clinical in vivo setting, such as pH variations, sampling time, and microbial degradation of Trp and Kyn. The permeabilities of Trp and Kyn are overall similar. However, the permeated Trp/Kyn ratio is generally higher than unity due to endogenous Trp, which should be taken into account to obtain a non-biased Trp/Kyn ratio accurately reflecting systemic concentrations. Additionally, prolonged sampling time is associated with bacterial Trp and Kyn degradation and should be considered in a clinical setting. Finally, the experimental results are supported by the four permeation pathways model, predicting that the hydrophilic Trp and Kyn molecules mainly permeate through lipid defects (i.e., the porous pathway). However, the hydrophobic indole ring of Trp is suggested to result in a small but noticeable relative increase of Trp diffusion via pathways across the SC lipid lamellae, while the shunt pathway is proposed to slightly favor permeation of Kyn relative to Trp.

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