Towards non-invasive screening of skin lesions by near-infrared spectroscopy

A noninvasive tool for skin tumor diagnosis would be a useful clinical adjunct. The purpose of this study was to determine whether near-infrared spectroscopy can be used to noninvasively characterize skin lesions. In vivo visible- and near-infrared spectra (400--2500 nm) of skin neoplasms (actinic keratoses, basal cell carcinomas, banal common acquired melanocytic nevi, dysplastic melanocytic nevi, actinic lentigines, and seborrheic keratoses) were collected by placing a fiberoptic probe on the skin. Paired t tests, repeated measures analysis of variance and linear discriminant analysis were used to determine whether significant spectral differences existed and whether spectra could be classified according to lesion type. Paired t tests showed significant differences (p < 0.05) between normal skin and skin lesions in several areas of the near-infrared spectrum. In addition, significant differences were found between the lesion groups by analysis of variance. Linear discriminant analysis classified spectra from benign lesions compared with premalignant or malignant lesions with high accuracy. Near-infrared spectroscopy is a promising noninvasive technique for the screening of skin lesions.