Mathematical morphologic analysis of aging-related epidermal changes.

Fractographic techniques based on mathematical morphology were used to study aging-related epidermal changes in abdominal skin samples obtained from 96 autopsy cases. Three linear roughness indices were evaluated for the rete peg profile and the shrinkage effect on the basal layer and interface between the granular and horny layers. Elderly subjects had a 36.3% decrease in rete peg-related roughness index when compared with younger subjects. This roughness index has been corrected, with shrinkage due to skin elasticity taken into account. For females, fitting of a logistic decay function yielded a curve with right and left asymptotes and a steeper descent between 40 and 60 years. Half value time--i.e., the time when half rete peg profile flattening occurred--was 46.8 years. In contrast, males showed almost monotonical decay. Epidermal thickness measured between rete pegs showed the same exponential decline for both sexes, with values from 22.6 to 11.4 microns. Skin shrinkage in elderly subjects decreased 22% in superficial layers and only 6% in the lower epidermis. In both cases shrinkage had a linear relation with age, and no sex differences were found.