Smartphone-based multispectral imaging: system development and potential for mobile skin diagnosis

Abstract

We investigate the potential of mobile smartphone-based multispectral imaging for the quantitative diagnosis and management of skin lesions. Recently, various mobile devices such as a smartphone have emerged as healthcare tools. They have been applied for the early diagnosis of nonmalignant and malignant skin diseases. Particularly, when they are combined with an advanced optical imaging technique such as multispectral imaging and analysis, it would be beneficial for the early diagnosis of such skin diseases and for further quantitative prognosis monitoring after treatment at home. Thus, we demonstrate here the development of a smartphone-based multispectral imaging system with high portability and its potential for mobile skin diagnosis. The results suggest that smartphone-based multispectral imaging and analysis has great potential as a healthcare tool for quantitative mobile skin diagnosis.

Clinical evaluation of smartphone-based fluorescence imaging for guidance and monitoring of ALA-PDT treatment of early oral cancer

“…28 The filter-based fluorescence imaging approach could be further enhanced by the use of multispectral imaging, for quantitative spectral unmixing of PpIX from autofluorescence background. 29 Another design improvement would be to couple the phone to a handheld imaging probe with form factor similar to a commercial dental camera. This would be more conducive to imaging inside the oral cavity and likely to yield improved uniformity of illumination, resolution, and overall image quality.…”

Portable, low-cost multispectral imaging system: design, development, validation, and utilization

“…For several years, it has been known that spectral imaging systems do need to not be large or expensive, and indeed, multiple groups have built such systems. 22,24,27,36,37 However, to our knowledge, these are the first end-to-end analyses that show it is possible to estimate tissue scattering and absorption properties with a low-cost system and that expensive hardware is not necessary for making clinically relevant measurements. Until now, validation of low-cost spectral analysis systems has focused primarily on the hardware, with less emphasis on the analysis and measuring optical properties.…”

“…[17][18][19] In contrast to these expensive, cart-filled systems from 15 years ago, 20,21 the revolution in consumer electronics has made low-cost cameras and LEDs ubiquitous, bringing down the costs significantly. Several groups and companies have attempted to build a low-cost multispectral imaging system that can quantify scattering and absorption in the tissue, [22][23][24] including some based on LED illumination at various wavelengths, [25][26][27][28] in which spectral data were validated against spectral measurements from existing systems. However, a full end-to-end analysis that shows both the ability to reproduce a broad spectrum in an accurate way and yields reasonable in vivo scattering and absorption measurements with low-cost hardware has been elusive, and there have been questions about the overall feasibility of using low-cost hardware to make clinically relevant optical measurements.…”

Microfluidic Point-of-Care Devices: New Trends and Future Prospects for eHealth Diagnostics

“…Paper-based colorimetric immunoassays are good candidates for low-cost diagnostic tools in resource-limited settings, but their application remains hampered by the need of desktop scanners that lack portability or of cameras that are sensitive to ambient light conditions. These limitations stimulated the use of smartphone-embedded high-resolution cameras to provide rapid optical detection of analytes with minimal instrumentation [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. The time-dependent variation of the colorimetric assessment due to the lack of control in the reaction volume has been solved with a paper-plastic hybrid microfluidic device, integrating a single channel with a micropump [63].…”