3-D Segmentation and Classification of Skin Images from Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (ongoing research)

• Objective: Segmentation of dermis/epidermis boundary (basal layer) from confocal microscopy images

• Why is it so important?  Because cancerous lesions begin at this layer first and then spread

• Imaging modality: Confocal Scanning laser reflectance microscopy (CSLM):

  • Powerful in-vivo modality for 3-D imaging of skin (Z-stack of 2-D images from different z locations)

• Different methods are applied for different skin types:

  • Fair skin has little melanin, hence brighter basal cells are not observed

  • Dark skin: noisy but the basal cells are more observable

  

• Several techniques are applied for different skin types including:

  • Active Contours

  • Feature extraction and classification