Automatic Skin Lesion Area Determination of Basal Cell Carcinoma Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography and a Skeletonization Approach: Preliminary Results

Overview

Journal J Biophotonics

Date 2019 May 18

PMID 31100191

Citations 14

Authors

Kristen M Meiburger

Zhe Chen

Christoph Sinz

Erich Hoover

Michael Minneman

Jason Ensher

Harald Kittler

Rainer A Leitgeb

Wolfgang Drexler

Mengyang Liu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cutaneous blood flow plays a key role in numerous physiological and pathological processes and has significant potential to be used as a biomarker to diagnose skin diseases such as basal cell carcinoma (BCC). The determination of the lesion area and vascular parameters within it, such as vessel density, is essential for diagnosis, surgical treatment and follow-up procedures. Here, an automatic skin lesion area determination algorithm based on optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images is presented for the first time. The blood vessels are segmented within the OCTA images and then skeletonized. Subsequently, the skeleton is searched over the volume and numerous quantitative vascular parameters are calculated. The vascular density is then used to segment the lesion area. The algorithm is tested on both nodular and superficial BCC, and comparing with dermatological and histological results, the proposed method provides an accurate, non-invasive, quantitative and automatic tool for BCC lesion area determination.

Citing Articles

Optical coherence tomography angiography enables visualization of microvascular patterns in chronic venous insufficiency.

Rotunno G, Deinsberger J, Meiburger K, Krainz L, Bugyi L, Hacker V iScience. 2025; 27(11):110998.

PMID: 39759076 PMC: 11700630. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.110998.

Quantitative assessment of the oral microvasculature using optical coherence tomography angiography.

Zhang T, Zhang Y, Liao J, Shepherd S, Huang Z, Macluskey M Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2024; 12:1464562.

PMID: 39372434 PMC: 11449849. DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1464562.

Beyond nothingness in the formation and functional relevance of voids in polymer films.

Kalutantirige F, He J, Yao L, Cotty S, Zhou S, Smith J Nat Commun. 2024; 15(1):2852.

PMID: 38605028 PMC: 11009415. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46584-2.

Tail Artifact Removal via Transmittance Effect Subtraction in Optical Coherence Tail Artifact Images.

Simoncic U, Milanic M Sensors (Basel). 2023; 23(23).

PMID: 38067685 PMC: 10708777. DOI: 10.3390/s23239312.

Optical coherence tomography.

Bouma B, de Boer J, Huang D, Jang I, Yonetsu T, Leggett C Nat Rev Methods Primers. 2023; 2.

PMID: 36751306 PMC: 9901537. DOI: 10.1038/s43586-022-00162-2.

References

Li A, You J, Du C, Pan Y . Automated segmentation and quantification of OCT angiography for tracking angiogenesis progression. Biomed Opt Express. 2018; 8(12):5604-5616. PMC: 5745106. DOI: 10.1364/BOE.8.005604. View

Scrivener Y, Grosshans E, Cribier B . Variations of basal cell carcinomas according to gender, age, location and histopathological subtype. Br J Dermatol. 2002; 147(1):41-7. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2133.2002.04804.x. View

Liew Y, McLaughlin R, Gong P, Wood F, Sampson D . In vivo assessment of human burn scars through automated quantification of vascularity using optical coherence tomography. J Biomed Opt. 2012; 18(6):061213. DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.18.6.061213. View

Laistler E, Dymerska B, Sieg J, Goluch S, Frass-Kriegl R, Kuehne A . In vivo MRI of the human finger at 7 T. Magn Reson Med. 2017; 79(1):588-592. PMC: 5763334. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.26645. View

Cosgrove D . Angiogenesis imaging--ultrasound. Br J Radiol. 2004; 76 Spec No 1:S43-9. DOI: 10.1259/bjr/86364648. View

Themstrup L, De Carvalho N, Nielsen S, Olsen J, Ciardo S, Schuh S . In vivo differentiation of common basal cell carcinoma subtypes by microvascular and structural imaging using dynamic optical coherence tomography. Exp Dermatol. 2017; 27(2):156-165. DOI: 10.1111/exd.13479. View

Schaverien M, Saint-Cyr M, Arbique G, Hatef D, Brown S, Rohrich R . Three- and four-dimensional computed tomographic angiography and venography of the anterolateral thigh perforator flap. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2008; 121(5):1685-1696. DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0b013e31816b4587. View

Meiburger K, Nam S, Chung E, Suggs L, Emelianov S, Molinari F . Skeletonization algorithm-based blood vessel quantification using in vivo 3D photoacoustic imaging. Phys Med Biol. 2016; 61(22):7994-8009. DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/61/22/7994. View

Baran U, Zhu W, Choi W, Omori M, Zhang W, Alkayed N . Automated segmentation and enhancement of optical coherence tomography-acquired images of rodent brain. J Neurosci Methods. 2016; 270:132-137. PMC: 4981518. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2016.06.014. View

10.

Salvi M, Molinari F . Multi-tissue and multi-scale approach for nuclei segmentation in H&E stained images. Biomed Eng Online. 2018; 17(1):89. PMC: 6011253. DOI: 10.1186/s12938-018-0518-0. View

11.

Blatter C, Weingast J, Alex A, Grajciar B, Wieser W, Drexler W . In situ structural and microangiographic assessment of human skin lesions with high-speed OCT. Biomed Opt Express. 2012; 3(10):2636-46. PMC: 3469999. DOI: 10.1364/BOE.3.002636. View

12.

Zhang A, Zhang Q, Chen C, Wang R . Methods and algorithms for optical coherence tomography-based angiography: a review and comparison. J Biomed Opt. 2015; 20(10):100901. PMC: 4881033. DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.20.10.100901. View

13.

Men S, Chen C, Wei W, Lai T, Song S, Wang R . Repeatability of vessel density measurement in human skin by OCT-based microangiography. Skin Res Technol. 2017; 23(4):607-612. PMC: 5632107. DOI: 10.1111/srt.12379. View

14.

Drexler W, Liu M, Kumar A, Kamali T, Unterhuber A, Leitgeb R . Optical coherence tomography today: speed, contrast, and multimodality. J Biomed Opt. 2014; 19(7):071412. DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.19.7.071412. View

15.

Li Q, Li L, Yu T, Zhao Q, Zhou C, Chai X . Vascular tree extraction for photoacoustic microscopy and imaging of cat primary visual cortex. J Biophotonics. 2016; 10(6-7):780-791. DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201600150. View

16.

Ulrich M, von Braunmuehl T, Kurzen H, Dirschka T, Kellner C, Sattler E . The sensitivity and specificity of optical coherence tomography for the assisted diagnosis of nonpigmented basal cell carcinoma: an observational study. Br J Dermatol. 2015; 173(2):428-35. DOI: 10.1111/bjd.13853. View

17.

Kang J, Heo S, Hyung W, Lim J, Lee S . 3D Active Vessel Tracking Using an Elliptical Prior. IEEE Trans Image Process. 2018; 27(12):5933-5946. DOI: 10.1109/TIP.2018.2862346. View

18.

Liu M, Drexler W . Optical coherence tomography angiography and photoacoustic imaging in dermatology. Photochem Photobiol Sci. 2019; 18(5):945-962. DOI: 10.1039/c8pp00471d. View

19.

Frangi A, Niessen W, Viergever M . Three-dimensional modeling for functional analysis of cardiac images: a review. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2001; 20(1):2-25. DOI: 10.1109/42.906421. View

20.

Chen Z, Liu M, Minneman M, Ginner L, Hoover E, Sattmann H . Phase-stable swept source OCT angiography in human skin using an akinetic source. Biomed Opt Express. 2016; 7(8):3032-48. PMC: 4986811. DOI: 10.1364/BOE.7.003032. View