The study, published in Cancers clinical journal, showed that VivoSight’s powerful Dynamic OCT (D-OCT) capability for detecting and imaging blood vessels in skin has the potential to help dermatologists non-invasively distinguish melanomas from suspicious nevi in unclear cases.
According to the paper authors, adding D-OCT imaging to clinic-dermoscopic examination may:
- improve diagnostic approach to unclear melanocytic lesions
- limit unnecessary biopsies
- accelerate and individualise the treatment plan
In the study, D-OCT images of 167 nevi and 159 melanomas were analysed for differences in the blood vessel shapes, density and diameter:
- melanomas and nevi were recognised with predictive values of 96.8% and 88.2% respectively from consistent differences in these properties in the two groups.
- in the study population, 16% of unnecessary biopsies of the nevi could have been avoided by use of this information.
Future research aims include:
- Setting a measure of observer proficiency in D-OCT scan evaluation
- Automatic software to recognize and outline lesions
- Integration with teledermatology
The study was performed by researchers at University Hospital of Augsburg, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
Perwein MK, Welzel J, De Carvalho N, Pellacani G, Schuh S. Dynamic Optical Coherence Tomography: A Non-Invasive Imaging Tool for the Distinction of Nevi and Melanomas. Cancers. 2022 Dec 20;15(1):20.
Cancer journal link to paper (open access): https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/15/1/20
Magnified visual view of a suspicious nevus
