ABSTRACT
Dermoscopy is a non-invasive diagnostic technique for the in vivo observation of pigmented skin lesions used in dermatology. There is currently a great interest in the prospects of automatic image analysis methods for dermoscopy, both to provide quantitative information about a lesion, which can be of relevance for the clinician, and as a stand alone early warning tool. The effective implementation of such a tool could lead to a reduction in the number of cases selected for exeresis, with obvious benefits both to the patients and to the health care system. The standard approach in automatic dermoscopic image analysis has usually three stages: (i) image segmentation, (ii) feature extraction and feature selection, (iii) lesion classification. This paper presents a review of the dermoscopic image analysis systems currently available, and an evaluation of the performance of one such systems, the Tuebinger Mole Analyser, with 83 dermoscopic images of melanocitic nevus.
