Assessment of suspected skin lesion depth by multispectral digital dermatoscopy: in-vivo tests

The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the possibility to assess the depth of suspected skin lesion in-vivo, using multispectral digital dermatoscopy (MDD); being malignant lesion depth an important factor related to survival rate. The system realised in this work is based on a special multi-wavelength LED illuminator (700 nm, 940 nm and 950 nm) and an high quality CCD camera which allows to acquire a detailed image of the suspected skin lesion. A statistically significant correlation between contrast of the area of the lesion at single wavelength and the depth of the lesions in vivo (as determined by histopathology survey) has been found using 39 samples. Interesting results, have been especially obtained using illuminating wavelength at 940 nm and 950 nm. Using a linear fitting of our data the maximum depth of melanoma has been overestimation of 0.43 ± 0.26 mm. The present study shows a possible use of our MDD system as in the assessment of maximum depth of suspected skin lesions.