The UTrack framework for segmenting and measuring dermatological ulcers through telemedicine

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Dermatology

Background:

• Chronic dermatological ulcers significantly impact patient well-being.
• Effective monitoring of wound healing is crucial for patient care but lacks practical tools.
• Existing methods for wound assessment are often inaccessible or impractical for routine use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the UTrack framework and its mobile application (UTrack-App) for practical wound monitoring.
• To develop an efficient and accessible tool for the segmentation and measurement of chronic ulcers.
• To enable visualization of ulcer healing evolution using standard mobile devices.

Main Methods:

• UTrack-App facilitates image acquisition and local data storage using standard smartphone cameras.
• The UTrack-Seg method semi-automatically segments wounds after manual user delineation.
• Wound area estimation is enhanced by manual input of measurement units (cm/inch).

Main Results:

• UTrack-Seg demonstrates superior performance in ulcer segmentation compared to existing methods.
• The unsupervised UTrack-Seg achieves an average F-Measure of 0.9 for real-world images.
• UTrack-App provides rapid (≤30s) analysis of high-resolution ulcer images.

Conclusions:

• UTrack-App offers a practical, efficient, and accessible solution for monitoring chronic dermatological ulcers.
• The UTrack framework, with its UTrack-Seg method, significantly improves wound assessment capabilities.
• This technology enhances patient treatment and diagnosis by providing accessible healing evolution data.