Method and Apparatus for Multi-spectral Imaging and Analysis of Skin Lesions and Biological Tissues

Abstract

A multispectral nevoscope that uses specific wavelengths in the visible and infrared spectrum of electromagnetic radiation to transilluminate a skin-lesion or a biological tissue or specimen for imaging and maps multispectral 2-dimensional images into 3-dimensional virtual space for providing 3-D distributions of pre-defined parameters representing the characteristic properties (such as melanin, hemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin, etc.) of a skin lesion. Methods are disclosed for analyzing and using the characteristic distributions of specific parameters for detection and management of skin-cancers, or characterization of a biological tissue or specimen.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A multispectral nevoscope for examining in situ a skin lesion of a patient, comprising:
 (a) a housing having a central axis and a base with a central aperture for positioning over a portion of skin of a patient, the portion of skin including the lesion to be examined;   (b) a face plate positioned in register with the central aperture comprising an imaging area having plural illumination fiber channels operably connected to an illuminator-filter assembly and plural receiver fiber channels; and   (c) at least one transillumination device disposed proximal to the faceplate operable to transmit light in a converging ring into the skin of the patient in the region of the lesion to uniformly transilluminate the region of skin of the patient including the lesion.   
     
     
         2 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  wherein the transillumination device comprises at least one ring illuminator disposed on the face plate. 
     
     
         3 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 2  wherein the at least one ring illuminator comprises a first outer ring illuminator comprising at least one transillumination fiber channel having a first wavelength oriented at 45 degrees to produce a convergent beam for multispectral or specific wavelength-based background image excitation, and a second outer ring illuminator comprising at least one transillumination fiber channel having a second wavelength oriented at 45 degrees to produce a convergent beam for multispectral or specific wavelength-based background image excitation. 
     
     
         4 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 3  wherein the first wavelength is shorter than the second wavelength. 
     
     
         5 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 2  further comprising a source mask wherein the imaging area illumination fiber channels and receiver fiber channels are in positions in a matrix corresponding to the source mask. 
     
     
         6 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  further comprising a focusing lens and optionally a polarizer. 
     
     
         7 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  further comprising a multispectral filter. 
     
     
         8 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  wherein the face plate is removably attached to the housing and is operably connected to a removable lens and/or polarizer wherein the lens and/or polarizer provides an interface to the imaging area. 
     
     
         9 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  wherein at least one of the plural receiver fiber channels is operably connected to a CCD image sensor. 
     
     
         10 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 1  comprising a device for recording images of the transilluminated skin lesion. 
     
     
         11 . The multispectral nevoscope of  claim 10  comprising a mask to receive the light from fibers not used for illumination, a focusing lens and/or polarizer operably linked to the mask and a CCD sensor to record images. 
     
     
         12 . A system comprising a multispectral nevoscope according to  claim 1  comprising a computing device operable to classify images collected by the multispectral nevoscope. 
     
     
         13 . The system according to  claim 12  wherein the computing device employs software operable to classify images using an adaptive fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm to provide an optimal set of classifiable clusters of correlated features extracted from white-light and multispectral nevoscope images.