Imaging system to help diagnose psoriasis
A team from the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY, USA) is seeking to improve the diagnosis and assessment of psoriasis through the creation of a multimodal, image-based analysis system.
"Presently, dermatologists use a method called the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) score to analyze affected areas of the skin," says Professor Christye Sisson, a biomedical photography at RIT and leader of the project team. "However, the process can be very subjective as each dermatologist could potentially grade patients differently."
The lack of empirical data can make it difficult to compare assessments made by different dermatologists or by different research groups studying the disease.
To resolve that issue, Sisson is working with Professor Francisco Tausk from the University of Rochester Medical Center to create an imaging tool that will be able to assess psoriasis based on the three criteria currently used by the PASI score: thickness, redness, and scale.
The team is currently testing several imaging techniques, including thermal, ultra violet reflectance, and LIDAR, to identify the best method for assessing each criteria. By doing so, Sisson and Tausk hope to ultimately create a standardized multimodal imaging system that could be implemented by dermatologists and hospitals nationwide.
"By modifying imaging technology that has already been developed we can create a repeatable, quantifiable method for diagnosing and ultimately treating patients with this disease," Sisson says.
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-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design