Abstract B29: Terahertz spectral imaging and scanning for early detection of skin cancer

A terahertz diagnosis tool has been developed to identify early stage skin cancer at the cellular level. Here, three different techniques are used where each technique independently identifies a given disease condition compared to healthy skin specimen; thus, collectively forms a diagnostic procedure with minimal falls alarm. Namely, terahertz sub-surface spectral imaging, terahertz absorbance spectroscopy and skin thickness profiling have been used. Terahertz radiation is non-ionizing, therefore, save for in-vivo investigations. It is also more sensitive than other forms of probing energies. In the present work, biopsies from three skin disease conditions have been compared with a healthy skin sample. It was found that the terahertz images clearly visualize healthy skin cells where a regular cellular pattern is visible. In contrast, cancerous skin specimen images exhibit deterioration from regular cellular pattern indicating abnormal conditions. For example, the skin specimen excised by Mohs microsurgery and diagnosed for basal cell carcinoma exhibits cell agglomeration indicating the onset of tumor formation. Similarly, other skin conditions such as squamous cell carcinoma and lentigo maligna exhibit their characteristic images without a regular cell pattern. Since the skin is a layered structure, a thickness profile of the healthy skin clearly exhibits this layering pattern while the layering is significantly diminished for cancerous skin samples. Thus a diminished layerin...
Source: Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Improving Cancer Risk Prediction for Prevention and Early Detection: Poster Presentations - Proffered Abstracts Source Type: research