Volumetric monitoring of cutaneous leishmaniasis ulcers: can camera be as accurate as laser scanner?

ABSTRACT

Cavity volume is an important clinical index for the assessment of the healing process and effectiveness of treatment applied on chronic ulcers. Recently, 3D scanners have proven to effectively track ulcer’s volume evolution. However, photogrammetry presents itself as a low cost and portable alternative. We conducted a comparative study between photogrammetric and 3D scanner-based volume estimation of small skin ulcers. A total of 24 cutaneous leishmaniasis ulcers’ virtual models were generated using a commercial laser scanner and a full-HD portable camera. The reconstruction from videos was performed using open-source software (VisualSFM). The results revealed a similar performance when compared to 3D Scan-based volume estimation with a median deviation and percentile error of 33.68 mm³ and 21.10%, respectively. In addition, the method proved to effectively follow the same tendency in the assessment of healing ulcers when compared to the 3D-scanner. Moreover, when comparing the two virtual models trough residual differences after ICP registration the mean error and standard deviation was 0.36 ± 0.27 mm.

KEYWORDS:

• Leishmaniasis
• photogrammetry
• 3D scanning
• volumetric measurement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ana Saavedra and Julien Rouyer for their assistance in scanning and patient handling. This work was supported by the PUCP DGI grant 2010–0105: Mejoras en el tratamiento de Leishmaniasis Cutanea and IMPULSO (Image Processing of Skin Ulcers in Tropical Areas) project funded by STIC-AmSud programme.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the PUCP DGI grant 2010-0105: Mejoras en el tratamiento de Leishmaniasis Cutanea, the PIIM grant 2014-5: Medición electrónica de úlceras Leishmaniásicas y su aplicación como herramienta para la valoración clínica rutinaria, investigación básica y terapéutica y potenciales aplicaciones de telemedicina and STIC-AmSud grant 2016/2017-2: IMPULSO (Image Processing of Skin Ulcers in Tropical Areas).