Colour clusters for computer diagnosis of melanocytic lesions
Abstract: Background: To overcome subjectivity and variability in the interpretation of dermoscopic images, image analysis programs, enabling the numerical description of melanocytic lesion images, have been developed. Objectives: Our aim was to assess a method for the description of colours in melanocytic lesion images, based on the subdivision of image colours into red, green and blue clusters. Methods: Melanomas and naevi of the test set were described by means of 23 colour clusters previously selected by a training set comprising 369 melanocytic lesion images. The diagnostic performance obtained by this automated method was compared to sensitivity and specificity of diagnosis of 4 dermatologists. Results: Colour cluster values significantly differed between melanomas and naevi. Moreover, sensitivity and specificity values of computer diagnosis were similar to those achieved by the dermatologists. Conclusion: Our image analysis program based on the assessment of one single parameter has the diagnostic accuracy of dermatologists employing dermoscopy on a regular basis.
Citation:
Seidenari, Stefania; Grana, Costantino; Pellacani, Giovanni "Colour clusters for computer diagnosis of melanocytic lesions" DERMATOLOGY, vol. 214, pp. 137 -143 , 2007 DOI: 10.1159/000098573
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- DOI: 10.1159/000098573