ALGORITHMS FOR PIGMENTED LESION SCREENING AND DETECTION

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A significant number of malignant melanomas, especially early melanomas curable by excision, are not diagnosed correctly in the clinic. Available teaching materials do not allow recognition of the critical features of melanoma, especially for early lesions. The Phase I digital image analysis effort has resulted in a set of clinical rules that may permit higher accuracy in diagnosis of early melanomas. Digital image analysis will be continued in Phase II to improve diagnostic accuracy. The Melanoma Detection CD-ROM will be developed for advanced medical students and primary care physicians. The tutorial will be tested and modified by both target groups prior to general release. The CD-ROM will incorporate some new computer instruction techniques and an atlas with descriptor and thumbnail image indexing capability, to allow "best- match" lookup. This CD-ROM will utilize results available only recently measuring diagnostic performance based on image features, successive pairs in discrimination, and diagnosis of atypical melanomas. The success of the module will be measured using medical student diagnostic performance with slides and primary care clinical outcomes. The semi- automatic classification system from Phase I will be modified and tested on the larger set of images available in Phase II using ROC curves. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: Specific features of melanoma will be presented quantitatively to medical students and primary care physicians in a CD-ROM tutorial. No similar product exists, and sales are expected to be significant. The semi- automated diagnostic system will have add-on potential for digital dermatoscopic systems.