Shining some light on the skin lesions and the extent of reflection can help dermatologist to identify the most dangerous form of cancer skin more easily, according to a new study. The technique could help pick up the cancer early and save patients from unnecessary biopsies.
Melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer, shows first as a dark pigmentation patches on the skin, but it is difficult to say such a malignancy a harmless mole or freckle . Dermatologists can have a computer compare the following images and search for mysterious reasons, they usually rely on signs, like irregular edges or more colors. Even specialists can have trouble detecting melanoma, however, and most would like to spare patients the stress of a biopsy when possible.
In 1991, an Italian team developed a new technique. When they shine a beam of light on the lesions of the skin, they found that the spectra of the reflected light are different for melanoma and benign skin lesions. Now, a research team from the Institute of Cancer and the Royal Marsden Hospital, UK, took this a step further technique.
Physicist Vincent Wallace and colleagues first measured the spectra of 121 "worrisome lesions," which were then removed and diagnosed in the laboratory. They found seven main differences between the spectra of benign lesions and melanomas, they used to develop software that analyzes the signal and determines whether the lesion is likely to be a melanoma or not. they integrated it in an experimental scanner, they tested of 47 lesions. As reports team in the March Physics in Medicine and Biology , they could change the system so that he can choose each malignant tumor, but produce few false alarms. the system has outperformed the analysis current computerized image, and as good as the visual inspection by most dermatologists, says physicist and member of the Jeffrey Bamber team. the process is also faster and can consider smaller lesions. And because it is fully automated, it could be used by nondermatologists such as GPs, said Bamber.
But Ronald Barr, a dermatologist at the University of California, Irvine, said he would be wary of using the technique to systematically screen patients - at least in the US - because he is afraid , it may not detect certain malignancies. "We have a litigious society," said Barr. Instead, he said the system could be helpful to detect many lesions on one patient known to have a melanoma, or for monitoring patients after treatment.
0 Komentar