The role of spectrophotometry in the diagnosis of melanoma

Abstract

BackgroundSpectrophotometry (SPT) could represent a promising technique for the diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma (CM) at earlier stages of the disease. Starting from our experience, we further assessed the role of SPT in CM early detection.MethodsDuring a health campaign for malignant melanoma at National Cancer Institute of Naples, we identified a subset of 54 lesions to be addressed to surgical excision and histological examination. Before surgery, all patients were investigated by clinical and epiluminescence microscopy (ELM) screenings; selected lesions underwent spectrophotometer analysis. For SPT, we used a video spectrophotometer imaging system (Spectroshade® MHT S.p.A., Verona, Italy).ResultsAmong the 54 patients harbouring cutaneous pigmented lesions, we performed comparison between results from the SPT screening and the histological diagnoses as well as evaluation of both sensitivity and specificity in detecting CM using either SPT or conventional approaches. For all pigmented lesions, agreement between histology and SPT classification was 57.4%. The sensitivity and specificity of SPT in detecting melanoma were 66.6% and 76.2%, respectively.ConclusionsAlthough SPT is still considered as a valuable diagnostic tool for CM, its low accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity represent the main hamper for the introduction of such a methodology in clinical practice. Dermoscopy remains the best diagnostic tool for the preoperative diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions.

The significance of spectrophotometric image analysis for diagnosis of the melanocytic skin tumours in association with their thickness

“…However, they achieve very similar results as in this study (82.7% sensitivity and 80.1% specificity vs 81.4% sensitivity and 86.4% specificity). The overall sensitivity and specificity observed in this study correspond to the results of the majority of previous studies . Unfortunately, the features of SIAgraphs individually are not specific enough for CM with different thickness.…”

“…based on the analysis of SIAcope images. 5,[7][8][9] The summary of the results are presented in the Table 1. Moncrieff et al 5 have examined discrimination power of individual and combinations of SIAscopic features for diagnostics of CM.…”

“…The overall sensitivity and specificity observed in this study correspond to the results of the majority of previous studies. 5,7,9,18 Unfortunately, the features of SIAgraphs individually are not specific enough for CM with different thickness.…”

“…Therefore, the analysis and interpretation of SIAscope images (SIAgraphs) can provide the information about the location, concentration and distribution of the skin chromophores. Several authors shows different results of melanoma recognition based on the analysis of SIAcope images . The summary of the results are presented in the Table .…”

Examination of skin lesions for cancer: Which clinical decision aids and tools are available in general practice?

“…Examples are SIAscopy, MoleMate, SolarScan, Melafind and spectrophotometry [114][115][116][117][118]. However, only MoleMate TM has been tested in a primary care setting.…”