Towards Non-Invasive Screening of Skin Lesions by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Abstract

A noninvasive tool for skin tumor diagnosis would be a useful clinical adjunct. The purpose of this study was to determine whether near-infrared spectroscopy can be used to noninvasively characterize skin lesions. In vivo visible- and near-infrared spectra (400--2500 nm) of skin neoplasms (actinic keratoses, basal cell carcinomas, banal common acquired melanocytic nevi, dysplastic melanocytic nevi, actinic lentigines, and seborrheic keratoses) were collected by placing a fiberoptic probe on the skin. Paired t tests, repeated measures analysis of variance and linear discriminant analysis were used to determine whether significant spectral differences existed and whether spectra could be classified according to lesion type. Paired t tests showed significant differences (p < 0.05) between normal skin and skin lesions in several areas of the near-infrared spectrum. In addition, significant differences were found between the lesion groups by analysis of variance. Linear discriminant analysis classified spectra from benign lesions compared with premalignant or malignant lesions with high accuracy. Near-infrared spectroscopy is a promising noninvasive technique for the screening of skin lesions.

Transillumination hyperspectral imaging for histopathological examination of excised tissue

“…However, in heterogeneous tissue samples, more than two significant spectral signatures are likely to be present and hence more complex post-processing algorithms are likely to be required. Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) are examples of algorithms that have been successfully employed to identify different tissue components in mass spectroscopy imaging, 27 Raman spectroscopy, 28,29 and FTIR spectroscopy. 30 Nonlinear techniques have been proposed as more robust alternatives to PCA and LDA for classification of tissue types from image data.…”

Basal cell carcinoma: biology, morphology and clinical implications

“…[79][80][81] By noninvasive methods, in-vivo NIR spectroscopy can be used to map the extent of BCCs and also to distinguish them from other cutaneous tumors with a high degree of accuracy. [79][80][81][82][83] That the two proposed mechanisms of tumorigenesis are complementary is suggested by the fact that shh-expressing cells also manifest increased expression of bcl-2, 84 likely through activation of the Gli proteins that are expressed in the outer root sheath of the normal hair follicle and in BCCs; 65 Gli-2 in particular appears to play an important role in the activation of the BCL2 gene. 70 …”

Infrared Imaging in Diagnosis of Dysplastic Nevi and Malignant Melanoma

“…This system has long been used for the detection of melanocytes on the skin. [9][10][11][12] Images using various spectral bands from 420 to 1040 nm to enhance the ABCD criteria has been shown to improve the accuracy of detecting melanoma. [13][14][15] In our series for this purpose 47 pigmented lesions of thirty-nine patients were evaluated.…”