“Development and Investigation of the Ultrasonic Measurement Methods for Diagnostics of Melanocytic Skin Tumors” Doctoral Thesis

Author, Institution: Kristina Andrėkutė, Kaunas University of Technology

Science Area, Field of Science: Technological Sciences, Measurement Engineering – 10T

Scientific Supervisor: Prof. dr. Renaldas RAIŠUTIS (Kaunas University of Technology, Technological Sciences, Measurement engineering – 10T).

Dissertation Defence Board of Measurement Engineering Science Field:
Prof. Dr. Vaidotas MAROZAS (Kaunas University of Technology, Technological sciences, Electrical and Electronical engineering – 01T) – chairman;
Prof. dr. Eugenijus KANIUŠAS (Vienna University of Technology, Technological sciences, Measurement engineering – 10T);
Prof. habil. Dr. Vaiva LESAUSKAITĖ (Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Biomedical sciences, Medicine – 06B );
Prof. dr. Liudas MAŽEIKA (Kaunas University of Technology, Technological sciences, Measurement engineering – 10T );
Prof. Dr. Arminas RAGAUSKAS (Kaunas University of Technology, Technological sciences, Measurement engineering – 10T ).

The Doctoral Dissertation is available at the library of Kaunas University of Technology (K. Donelaičio St. 20, Kaunas)

Annotation:
Melanocytic skin tumours are the pigmented skin lesions that arise due to changes of melanocytic cells of the human skin and can be benign (nevus) and malignant (malignant melanoma). Clinical diagnostic accuracy of malignant melanoma is only about 60% and is related with experience of dermatologist. Non-invasive high frequency (>20 MHz) ultrasonic examination can be used for the thickness evaluation and surgery planning of the melanoma, unfortunately, all previous measurements were performed manually. Automatic methods can be used in order to avoid errors related to the experience of the observer, and ultrasonic data analysis could be exploited for more accurate boundary detection and extended quantitative characterization of skin tumours. So, the aim of the dissertation was to develop and investigate the automatic methods for the assessment of the parameters for a differential diagnosis of melanocytic skin tumours by using analysis of ultrasonic signals.
In the thesis, the set of methods for non-invasive automatic boundaries detection and quantitative characterization based on ultrasonic data analysis of melanocytic skin tumours are presented. The proposed methods were verified by using real clinical and modelled ultrasonic data. The results have shown that ultrasonic data analysis methods can supplement conventional diagnostic methods by quantitative decision support, and reduce the number of unnecessary surgeries and histological examinations.