Dermoscopy analysis of RGB-images based on comparative features

In this paper, we propose an algorithm for color and texture analysis for dermoscopic images of human skin based on Haar wavelets, Local Binary Patterns (LBP) and Histogram Analysis. This approach is a modification of «7-point checklist» clinical method. Thus, that is an “absolute” diagnostic method because one is using only features extracted from tumor’s ROI (Region of Interest), which can be selected manually and/or using a special algorithm. We propose additional features extracted from the same image for comparative analysis of tumor and healthy skin. We used Euclidean distance, Cosine similarity, and Tanimoto coefficient as comparison metrics between color and texture features extracted from tumor’s and healthy skin’s ROI separately. A classifier for separating melanoma images from other tumors has been built by SVM (Support Vector Machine) algorithm. Classification’s errors with and without comparative features between skin and tumor have been analyzed. Significant increase of recognition quality with comparative features has been demonstrated. Moreover, we analyzed two modes (manual and automatic) for ROI selecting on tumor and healthy skin areas. We have reached 91% of sensitivity using comparative features in contrast with 77% of sensitivity using the only “absolute” method. The specificity was the invariable (94%) in both cases.