title: In vivo spectrophotometric evaluation of neoplastic and non-neoplastic skin pigmented lesions. II: Discriminant analysis between nevus and melanoma.
abstract: Reflectance spectrophotometry from 420 to 780 nm on 31 primary melanoma and 31 benign nevi has been performed by using an external integrating sphere coupled to a spectrophotometer. Measurements show that reflectance spectra of melanoma and nevi manifest dissimilar patterns. From these spectra four variables, whose physical and/or physiological meanings remain to be investigated, have been derived. All of them are significantly different when compared between melanoma and nevi. A discriminant function between the two groups of lesions has been determined by using a stepwise discriminant analysis, resulting in a test with a sensitivity of 90.3% and a specificity of 77.4%. This method of discrimination between melanoma and nevi seems to have a discriminating power almost equal to that of a clinical judgement from a specialized medical doctor, thus suggesting a new method for screening skin pigmented lesions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Physics, Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marchesini
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cascinelli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brambilla
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Clemente
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mascheroni
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pignoli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Testori
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Venturoli
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology*; D009508:Nevus, Pigmented / Q000473:pathology*; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D013053:Spectrophotometry / Q000379:methods