title: Design and validation of a clinical instrument for spectral diagnosis of cutaneous malignancy.
abstract: We report a probe-based portable and clinically compatible instrument for the spectral diagnosis of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers. The instrument combines two modalities--diffuse reflectance and intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy--to provide complementary information regarding tissue morphology, function, and biochemical composition. The instrument provides a good signal-to-noise ratio for the collected reflectance and laser-induced fluorescence spectra. Validation experiments on tissue phantoms over a physiologically relevant range of albedos (0.35-0.99) demonstrate an accuracy of close to 10% in determining scattering, absorption and fluorescence characteristics. We also demonstrate the ability of our instrument to collect in vivo diffuse reflectance and fluorescence measurements from clinically normal skin, dysplastic nevus, and malignant nonmelanoma skin cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C0800, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Narasimhan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rajaram
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Aramil
authors.forename: Kelvin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jason S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Reichenberg
authors.forename: Tri H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Tunnell
mesh_terms: D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000295:instrumentation*