Objective interpretation of severity of SLS induced edema by stereoimaging.
BACKGROUND
In the evaluation of the severity of skin inflammations, visual scoring system is widely being used as a subjective method. However, it is well known that interobserver variations occur even between the interpretations of experienced dermatologists.


OBJECTIVE
To develop a new objective and quantitative method for the evaluation of skin surface contours and for the assessment of severity in SLS-induced edema, a new investigatory tool based on the concept of "stereoimaging" was studied. Differences between binocular images were used by a stereoimage optical topometer (SOT) system capable of calculating skin surface topographic information, which was then used to produce a three-dimensional image.


METHODS
We compared the results obtained by SOT with a visual scoring system after applying sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) to skin. The degree of edema was assessed qualitatively by visual scoring (0: none, 1: mild edema, 2: moderate edema, 3: severe edema). To quantify the severity, five three-dimensional parameters (S(a), S(z), SL, SA and SV) were used in the SOT analysis.


RESULTS
The means of these five parameters increased significantly in visual grade 1+ compared to visual grade 0 and the means of the five parameters decreased significantly and proportionally as the visual grades increased from 1+ to 3+. A highly significant correlation was found to exist between the visual scoring results and the five SOT parameters.


CONCLUSIONS
SOT can be used to evaluate the severity of SLS-induced edema objectively and can be extensively applied to evaluate the degree of severity in other inflammatory skin conditions.
Kim
Min-Gi
MG
Department of Electric and Information Engineering, Korea University, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
Park
Sang-Yong
SY
Ha
Seung-Han
SH
Lee
Jae-Dong
JD
Hong
Seung-Hyun
SH
Moon
Jong-Sub
JS
Oh
Chil-Hwan
CH
D000328:Adult; D004487:Edema / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology*; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000473:pathology*; D012967:Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate
D012967:Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate