Experts note that conventional medical imaging, employed for diagnosing, monitoring, or treating specific medical conditions, has faced persistent difficulties in obtaining clear images of patients with dark skin.
Researchers claim they have discovered a method to enhance medical imaging, allowing physicians to visualize the interior of the body, regardless of skin tone.
Researchers Have Discovered a Method to Improve the Readability of Medical Imaging on Dark Skin
The October issue of the journal Photoacoustics featured the publication of these new findings. The research team conducted tests on the forearms of 18 volunteers, encompassing a spectrum of skin tones from light to dark. Their results revealed that the level of clutter, a distortion in the photoacoustic signal that hampers imaging clarity, increased with darker skin tones.
Muyinatu Bell, a study author and the director and founder of the Photoacoustic and Ultrasonics Systems Engineering (PULSE) Lab at JHU, explained to CNN that individuals with darker skin naturally have higher melanin levels. In simple terms, this higher melanin content in the skin could be linked to increased clutter in medical imaging.
Muyinatu Bell explained, “The skin serves as a sound transmitter, but it’s not the focused sound we desire with ultrasound; it’s diffuse and leads to a lot of interference. This scattering of sound due to melanin absorption becomes more pronounced as melanin concentration increases.
Altering a Method
In a joint effort with researchers in Brazil, who had previously applied one of Bell’s algorithms, the study determined that the signal-to-noise ratio, a scientific gauge comparing signal to background noise, enhanced for all skin tones when they employed a method known as “short-lag spatial coherence beamforming” for medical imaging. Originally designed for ultrasounds, this technique can be adapted for photoacoustic imaging.
Theo Pavan, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor in the physics department at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, explained that this method combines both light and ultrasound technologies to create a novel medical imaging approach.
Pavan commented, “We confirmed that this method is significantly less affected by skin color when it comes to image quality, in comparison to the more commonly used conventional techniques within the community.
The researchers wrote that this study is the “first to objectively evaluate skin tone and to provide both qualitative and quantitative evidence that the photoacoustic signal from the skin, as well as clutter artifacts, increase with epidermal melanin content.
Photoacoustic technology has various applications, and with the researchers’ recent advancements, it has the potential to enhance the accuracy and equity of health issue diagnoses.
Guilherme Fernandes, a study author and a Ph.D. candidate in physics applied to medicine and biology at USP, mentioned that currently, the focus is on expanding the use of breast imaging. The next goal is to enhance the overall image quality.
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