Polarized multispectral imaging for the diagnosis of skin cancer

Abstract

The effective and non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer is a hot topic in biophotonics since the current gold standard, a biopsy, is slow and costly. Non-invasive optical techniques such as polarization and multispectral imaging have arisen as powerful tools to overcome these constraints. The combination of these techniques provides a comprehensive characterization of skin chromophores including polarization, color and spectral features. Hence, in this work we propose a polarized multispectral imaging device that works from 414 nm to 995 nm and at 0º, 45º and 90º polarization configurations. Preliminary results performed over 20 nevi and 20 melanoma found statistically significant descriptors (p<0.05) that discriminated between these two lesion etiologies. A further analysis of more lesions is expected to contribute in reducing the false positives during the diagnosis process and, as a consequence, the number of necessary biopsies.