On the Sensitivity of Skin Spectral Responses to Variations in the Thickness of the Cutaneous Tissues

Abstract

A wide range of devices are being routinely used in the noninvasive screening and monitoring of medical conditions through the analysis of skin spectral responses. The correct interpretation of these responses often depends on the availability of high-fidelity characterization datasets for the selected specimens. More specifically, the higher their fidelity, the more effective the quantification of changes observed in a given biophysical variable of interest. Skin thickness is among the most relevant of these parameters since it plays a pivotal role in the attenuation (scattering and absorption) of light traversing the cutaneous tissues. Transient and permanent physiological processes, such as tanning and ageing, can result in significant time-dependent thickness variations. These, in turn, can introduce biases in the comparison of skin spectral responses obtained at different time instances. In this paper, we investigate the impact of thickness variations on skin reflectance with respect to different regions of light spectrum. Our findings are expected to contribute to the mitigation of interpretation errors and, thus, to the enhancement of noninvasive screening and monitoring procedures based on skin spectral responses.