ABSTRACT
Burns are often classified according to their depth into four groups: first-degree burns or epidermal burns, superficial dermal burns, deep-dermal burns, and full-thickness burns. It is very important to provide a correct burn-severity assessment of the burn wounds and the corresponding first treatments as soon as possible for a successful evolution of the wound. All facts justify the need of telemedicine or computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) tools, which will help non-expert doctors in diagnosis. Three main issues are addressed in this chapter: the feasibility of telemedicine applied to burn diagnosis, burn depth estimation from digital photographs, and burn area estimation. A psychophysical experiment to determine subjective features that physicians employ to determine burn depth is described, and subsequently, mathematical features correlated with these subjective features are determined. Finally, a software tool for burn area estimation is described, and an extensive validation of this tool is presented.
