Experts state that getting quality images of individuals with dark skin has long been a challenge for traditional medical imaging. Which is use to diagnose, monitor, or treat certain medical disorders.
Scientists claim to have discovered a method for enhancing medical imaging. Which allows doctors to view within the body regardless of skin tone
The latest research was release in the journal Photoacoustics‘ October issue. Eighteen volunteers, whose skin tones ranged from light to dark, had their forearms checked. They discovered that skin blackness increased the amount of clutter. A distortion of the photoacoustic signal that makes the picture harder to understand.
Darker skinned people have higher melanin levels. And one of the optical absorbers that human bodies naturally have is melanin,” said Muyinatu Bell. The study’s author as well as the creator and head of JHU’s Photoacoustic and Ultrasonics Systems Engineering (PULSE) Lab, in an interview with CNN. Put differently, a higher level of clutter may be link to a skin’s melanin concentration.
“The skin basically functions as a sound transmitter. But the sound is diffuse and all over the place, causing a lot of confusion, rather than the focus sound that ultrasound provides,” Bell explain.
Therefore, when melanin concentration rises, the sound scattering brought on by melanin absorption gets worse and worse.
Modifying a method
The study, which was conducted in conjunction with Brazilian researchers who had previously use one of Bell’s algorithms. Discover that the use of a technique known as “short-lag spatial coherence beamforming” during medical imaging improve the signal-to-noise ratio. A scientific measure that compares signal with background noise, for all skin tones. It is possible to apply that method, which was first employed for ultrasounds, for photoacoustic imaging.
The study’s author and associate professor of physics at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, Theo Pavan, told CNN that the method combines light and ultrasound technologies to create a new kind of medical imaging.
We have establish that, in comparison to more conventional approaches that are more often use in the community. Skin tone has a far smaller impact on the quality of the image produce using this method stated Pavan.
According to the researchers, the work is “the first to objectively assess skin tone and to both qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate that skin” photoacoustic signal. And clutter artifacts increase with epidermal melanin content.”
Although photoacoustic technology has many uses, recent advancements by researchers suggest that it might aid in more equitable and accurate health issue diagnosis.
According to Guilherme Fernandes, an author of the study and Ph.D. candidate in physics applied to medicine and biology at USP, “right now, it’s increasing the application of the breast imaging,” and the next step would be to “increase the image quality overall.”
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