A noncontact wound measurement system

The instrument described in this manuscript was developed to perform objective, quantitative measurements of wound healing, which will enable service providers to assess, improve, and individualize the treatment given to each wound patient. It was designed to produce measures that will enable the care provider to assess the current state of the wound as well as gain insight into the time course of the wound healing by comparing the series of wound data collected over time. The record provided by the instrument could also assist in legal defense; a need that, unfortunately, cannot be ignored. The system uses a structured lighting pattern captured on a digital photograph of a wound to calculate the area and volume of debrided wounds. We used plaster molds with spherical indentations to represent various wounds to evaluate the precision of the system. Results indicate that when at least 144 of the data points in the picture lie within the wound borders, the surface area and wound volume are repeatable and the precision is within +/-3% of the calculated values based on the geometry of the spherical indentation.