A Measurement Software for Professional Training in Early Detection of Melanoma

Abstract

Software systems have been long introduced as support to the early detection of melanoma through the automatic analysis of suspicious skin lesions. Nevertheless, their behavior is not yet similar to the performance exhibited by expert dermatologists in terms of diagnostic accuracy. Instead, a software system should be adopted by non-experienced dermatologists in order to improve the measurement and detection results for skin atypical patterns and the accuracy of the corresponding second opinion. This paper describes an image-based measurement and classification system able to score pigmented skin lesions according to the Seven-Point Check-list diagnostic method. Focus is devoted to the measurement procedure of biological structures more closely related to the atypical character of the nevus. Moreover, the performances of the measurement system are evaluated by considering the support to dermatologists with different experiences during the clinical activity.