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Multiple skin conditions exist which involve clinically significant changes in elastic properties.
Early detection of such changes may prove critical in formulating a proper treatment plan. However,
most diagnoses still rely primarily on visual inspection followed by biopsy for histological analysis. As a
result, there would be considerable clinical benefit if a noninvasive technology to study the skin were
available. The primary hypothesis of this work is that skin elasticity may serve as an important method
for assisting diagnosis and treatment. Perhaps the most apparent application would be for the
differentiation of skin cancers, which are a growing health concern in the United States as total annual
cases are now being reported in the millions by the American Cancer Society. In this paper, we use our
novel modality independent elastography (MIE) method to perform dermoscopic skin elasticity
evaluation. The framework involves applying a lateral stretching to the skin in which dermoscopic
images are acquired before and after mechanical excitation. Once collected, an iterative elastographic
reconstruction method is used to generate images of tissue elastic properties and is based on a twodimensional
(2-D) membrane model framework. Simulation studies are performed that show the effects
of three-dimensional data, varying subdermal tissue thickness, and nonlinear large deformations on the
framework. In addition, a preliminary in vivo reconstruction is demonstrated. The results are
encouraging and indicate good localization with satisfactory degrees of elastic contrast resolution.
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