Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research Centre, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Tronoh, Malaysia.
Skin Res Technol. 2013 Feb;19(1):e72-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0846.2011.00610.x. Epub 2012 Jan 11.
Vitiligo is a cutaneous pigmentary disorder characterized by depigmented macules and patches that result from loss of epidermal melanocytes. Physician evaluates the efficacy of treatment by comparing the extent of vitiligo lesions before and after treatment based on the overall visual impression of the treatment response. This method is called the physician's global assessment (PGA) which is subjective. In this article, we present an innovative digital image processing method to determine vitiligo lesion area in an objective manner.
The digital method uses Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to generate melanin-based images representing skin areas due to melanin followed by Region Growing process to segment vitiligo lesion from normal skin.
Based on 41 digital images of vitiligo lesions taken from 18 patients, the proposed method achieved sensitivities of 0.9105 ± 0.0161, specificities of 0.9973 ± 0.0009 and accuracies of 0.9901 ± 0.0028 at 95% confidence level.
With the proposed method, physicians are able to assess vitiligo treatment efficacies objectively.
白癜风是一种皮肤色素紊乱疾病，其特征是色素脱失的斑块和斑点，这是由于表皮黑色素细胞的丧失所致。医生通过比较治疗前后白癜风病变的范围，根据治疗反应的整体视觉印象来评估治疗效果。这种方法称为医生总体评估（PGA），是主观的。在本文中，我们提出了一种创新的数字图像处理方法，以客观地确定白癜风病变区域。
数字方法使用独立成分分析（ICA）生成基于黑色素的图像，代表由于黑色素而导致的皮肤区域，然后通过区域生长过程将白癜风病变从正常皮肤中分割出来。
基于 18 名患者的 41 张白癜风病变的数字图像，该方法在 95%置信水平下的灵敏度为 0.9105±0.0161，特异性为 0.9973±0.0009，准确性为 0.9901±0.0028。
通过该方法，医生能够客观地评估白癜风的治疗效果。
