A Pilot Study to Evaluate Optical Spectroscopy of Pigmented Skin Lesions

Skin Cancer

moles, melanoma

The incidence of malignant melanoma has increased dramatically in recent decades. In 1930, the lifetime risk of an individual in the United States developing melanoma was 1 in 1,500. This has been exponentially increasing over the years with the risk estimated to be 1 in 75 in 2000 . According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 59,580 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the United States in 2005 and about 7,770 people are expected to die of the disease.

The researcher ucan use special imaging devices to obtain information about a typical mole and melanoma and use this information to determine the different between malignant and benign melanized lesions. The imaging devices are, Modified Two Layer Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy,multi-spectral imaging, and Spatially Modulated Quantitative Spectroscopy can use to measure atypical moles and melanoma and correlate the results of the biopsy tissue histology. The imaging devices can quantify melanin, oxy and deoxy hemoglobin concentration, water, lipid and reduced scattering coefficients and can compare results to histopathologic. Atypical moles and melanoma have a different optical profile based on physiological parameters compared to benign nevus.

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