Due to changes in environmental and lifestyle factors, the incidence and mortality rates of skin melanoma have doubled in the last ten years. It is a malignant skin tumour that stands out for the relatively young age of the patients and extremely high mortality rates, especially when early diagnosis is lacking. The mortality rate of patients from skin melanoma is one of the highest (up to 98%). Skin melanoma must be diagnosed and treated as early as possible in order to save the costs of expensive complex treatment and avoid complex operations. The thickness (depth) of the tumour is important for the prognosis and treatment tactics of skin melanoma. To date, there is a lack of data on how to avoid variation in cutaneous melanoma thickness measurements between ultrasound investigators and pathologists. Therefore, this project will aim to verify the automatic evaluation method of ultrasound images in three-dimensional space developed by KTU for the early diagnosis of malignant skin tumours. The expected result of the project is a technologically new software product for ultrasound equipment and a skin tumour diagnostic algorithm based on it. In carrying out the tasks of the project, the aim will be to determine the most optimal ultrasound frequency for accurate assessment of the depth of skin melanomas and to test the assumption whether tissue fixation after surgery can influence the macroscopic changes of tumour tissues.
Project funding:
KTU R&D&I Fund
Period of project implementation: 2014-03-03 - 2014-12-31
Project partners: Lithuanian University of Health Sciences
