Analysis of physiological parameters in skin tumors by a scaleable Monte Carlo simulation

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the use of a single scaleable Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the physiological parameters of skin lesions from data collected in vivo using spectroscopic oblique-incidence reflectometry. Spatio-spectral data from 101 cases are separated into two groups based on their melanocytic conditions. Group-1 consists of (a) cancerous basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas and (b) benign actinic keratoses and seborrheic keratoses. Group-2 consists of (a) dysplastic nevi and (b) benign common nevi. Several physiological parameters are estimated, such as the size distribution of the optical scatterers, the relative index of refraction of the scatterers, the total volume concentration of the scatterers, the concentration of the total hemoglobin and the oxygen saturation, and the relative changes related to the values calculated from the neighboring healthy tissues. The most significant features are then combined into one feature. The results show that for both groups the combined feature is significantly different for the benign and cancerous cases than for the dysplastic cases. The ROC area was 0.9 and 0.86 for group-1 and group-2, respectively.