%0 Journal Article
%T Computer Aided Diagnostic Support System for Skin Cancer: A Review of Techniques and Algorithms
%A Ammara Masood
%A Adel Ali Al-Jumaily
%J International Journal of Biomedical Imaging
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/323268
%X Image-based computer aided diagnosis systems have significant potential for screening and early detection of malignant melanoma. We review the state of the art in these systems and examine current practices, problems, and prospects of image acquisition, pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction and selection, and classification of dermoscopic images. This paper reports statistics and results from the most important implementations reported to date. We compared the performance of several classifiers specifically developed for skin lesion diagnosis and discussed the corresponding findings. Whenever available, indication of various conditions that affect the technique¡¯s performance is reported. We suggest a framework for comparative assessment of skin cancer diagnostic models and review the results based on these models. The deficiencies in some of the existing studies are highlighted and suggestions for future research are provided. 1. Introduction The incidence of melanoma skin cancer has been increasing over the past few decades [1¨C3]. Estimated 76,250 new cases of invasive melanoma were diagnosed in USA in 2012, with an estimated number of 9,180 that result in death [4]. Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. Over 1,890 Australians die from skin cancer each year [5]. Melanoma is capable of deep invasion. The most dangerous characteristic of melanoma is that it can spread widely over the body via the lymphatic vessels and blood vessels. Thus, early diagnosis of melanoma is a key factor for the prognosis of the disease. The usual clinical practice of melanoma diagnosis is a visual inspection by the dermatologist. Clinical diagnostic accuracy is a bit disappointing [6, 7]. However, dermoscopy [8] is a noninvasive diagnostic technique that links clinical dermatology and dermatopathology by enabling the visualization of morphological features which are not discernible by examination with the naked eye. There are different techniques, like solar scan [9], epiluminescence microscopy (ELM) [10, 11], cross-polarization epiluminescence (XLM), and side transillumination (TLM) [12, 13], that can greatly increase the morphological details that are visualized. Thus, they provide additional diagnostic criteria to the dermatologist. Dermoscopy enables better diagnosis as compared to unaided eye [14¨C16] with an improvement in diagnostic sensitivity of 10¨C30% [17]. However, it has also been demonstrated that dermoscopy may actually lower the diagnostic accuracy in the hands of inexperienced dermatologists [10, 18¨C20], since this
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbi/2013/323268/