Patent Document ID: 9823189
Application ID: 12933037
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. An optical method for determining morphological parameters and physiological properties of a multilayered, vertically inhomogeneous skin tissue having inherent optical properties that are fixed in each layer, but vary between layers, the method comprising the steps of: generating a plurality of reflectance images using an optical transfer diagnosis (OTD) device, said plurality of reflectance images comprising reflectance measurements from above a skin surface for a plurality of different wavelengths from multiple angles of illumination and detection and using the reflectance measurements to determine the morphological parameters and the physiological properties for each layer in a plurality of layers of the multilayered, vertically inhomogeneous skin tissue, wherein said OTD device comprises a measurement head comprising a plurality of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps and a plurality of cameras where each of the plurality of LED lamps are placed at a different angle, relative to the skin surface wherein determining the morphological parameters comprises using one of the reflectance images of the lesion from a visible channel for: determining a lesion border, measuring a size of the lesion, measuring a histogram-width that gives a measure of inhomogeneity of the reflectance image of the lesion, capturing a relative moment of inertia of the lesion, determining a center distance representing a physical distance between a geometric center of the lesion and a center of mass of absorptance, determining a fractal dimension of the lesion which describes the complexity of its border, determining an asphericity of the lesion, and determining a relative border length of the lesion, wherein the relative border length is defined as a ratio of a border length of a circle with a same area as the lesion to the border length of the lesion, and wherein determining the morphological parameters further comprises, and also wherein determining the physiological properties comprises, using a bio-optical model, radiative transfer modeling, and a non-linear inversion procedure; systematically varying input values of the morphological parameters and the physiological properties of the skin tissue while simultaneously varying inherent optical properties, wherein the inherent optical properties are linked to the morphological parameters and the physiological properties of the skin tissue by the bio-optical model, computing reflectances by the radiative transfer model for a plurality of different wavelengths and a plurality of different measurement configurations, each with specified directions of illumination and observation until an agreement between the reflectance measurements and reflectances computed by the radiative transfer model reaches a predetermined level of accuracy, and obtaining, for each layer in the plurality of layers of the multilayered, vertically inhomogeneous skin tissue, the morphological parameters and the physiological properties returned by the non-linear inversion procedure.