The role of dynamic infrared imaging in melanoma diagnosis.

Melanoma incidence and the lifetime risk are increasing at an alarming rate in the United States and worldwide. In order to improve survival rates, the goal is to detect melanoma at an early stage of the disease. Accurate, sensitive and reliable quantitative diagnostic tools can reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies, the associated morbidity as well as the costs of care in addition to improving survival rates. The recently introduced quantitative dynamic infrared imaging system QUAINT measures differences in the infrared emission between healthy tissue and the lesion during the thermal recovery process after the removal of a cooling stress. Results from a clinical study suggest that the temperature of cancerous lesions is higher during the first 45-60 seconds of thermal recovery than the temperature of benign pigmented lesions. This small temperature difference can be measured by modern infrared cameras and serve as an indicator for melanoma in modern quantitative melanoma detectors.