Comparison of photoacoustic imaging and histopathological examination in determining the dimensions of 52 human melanomas and nevi ex vivo

Reoperations and unnecessary removal of healthy tissue could be reduced if non-invasive imaging techniques were available for presurgical tumor delineation in skin cancer. In this study, 3D multiwavelength photoacoustic imaging was performed ex vivo on 25 melanomas and 27 nevi. The tumors were delineated using spectral unmixing at 59 excitation wavelengths, from 680 nm to 970 nm, accounting for multiple tissue chromophores. The tumor dimensions determined with photoacoustic imaging were strongly correlated with those determined by histopathological examination for both melanomas and nevi.