Texture analysis is a useful tool to characterize the cutaneous biomechanical profile

• Main Authors: Henrique Silva, Francisco Rego, Rafaela Francisco, L. Monteiro Rodrigues
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ALIES - Associação Lusófona para o Desenvolvimento da Investigação e do Ensino das Ciências da Saúde 2019-06-01
• Series: Journal Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Research (BBR)
• Subjects: skin biomechanics; cutiscan®; texture analysis; dynamic parameters
• Online Access: http://www.alies.pt/BBR%20Editions/Vol-16-2-2019/Art5.pdf
• ISSN: 2182-2360; 2182-2379

Skin displays viscoelastic properties, which allow it to sustain deformation in virtually all directions without breaking. Most devices to quantify viscoelasticity suffer from the drawback of assessing only a limited range of angles. Cutiscan® CS 100 is a recently introduced device that allows quantification of skin viscoelasticity by creating skin suction and recording the consequent displacement in a video. Displacement videos (baseline –0.50s; suction – 0.50-2.50s; recovery – 2.50-3.00s) of ten female subjects (24.5 ± 6.2 y.o.) were obtained on the volar surface of the forearm after informed written consent. Videos were decomposed into their corresponding frames, of which a region of interest was selected and several texture analysis (TA) parameters were calculated – entropy, contrast, correlation, energy, homogeneity. During suction entropy and correlation increased significantly, while energy decreased significantly. Contrast and homogeneity changed without significance. During recovery the entropy and correlation remained significantly elevated relative to baseline, suggesting that a full recovery did not take place. These results seem to confirm the usefulness of texture analysis for the purposes of skin viscoelasticity quantification based on skin displacement videos, which justifies further developments.