Functional optical coherence tomography of pigmented lesions

Area of Science:

• Dermatology
• Medical Imaging
• Oncology

Background:

• Cutaneous melanomas affect over 231,000 individuals annually worldwide.
• Current melanoma diagnostic methods require improved sensitivity and specificity.
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT) offers morphological and quantitative analysis of skin lesions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the differences between nevi and melanomas using OCT imaging.
• To determine if OCT can qualitatively and quantitatively differentiate between benign and malignant pigmented lesions.

Main Methods:

• Forty pigmented skin lesions from 33 patients were imaged using OCT.
• Epidermal layer thickness was measured.
• The attenuation coefficient (μoct) was extracted from 200 OCT images.

Main Results:

• Melanoma was morphologically characterized by the absence of the lesion's lower border (P=0.02).
• The attenuation coefficient (μoct) differed significantly between benign and malignant lesions (P=0.02).
• No significant differences in epidermal layer thickness were observed between benign lesions and melanomas.

Conclusions:

• Quantitative OCT analysis provides valuable insights into pigmented skin lesion characteristics.
• The attenuation coefficient (μoct) shows potential for differentiating benign lesions from melanomas.
• OCT serves as a promising adjunctive tool for melanoma diagnosis.