Region extraction method for skin grafts via image analysis

ABSTRACT

Dermal grafts are used for patients with severe burn injuries whose natural healing abilities are limited or exhausted. This paper proposes a method to segment burnt and grafted areas from images with meshed grafts. First, RGB colour input images are converted to images in the L*a*b* colour space. The transformed images are then segmented with the simple linear iterative clustering superpixel algorithm. Subsequently, the burnt and grafted areas are classified with a support vector machine, and the output area size is modified for all burnt areas. The segmentation results are compared with the areas identified by two dermatologists based on the concordance rate (CR), positive predictive value (PPV), sensitivity, and F-measure values. The proposed segmentation method yielded CRs equal to 84.3 % and 85.9 %, PPVs equal to 87.2 % and 87.9 %, sensitivities equal to 84.7 % and 86.4 %, and F-measure values equal to 85.8 % and 87.0 %. This study developed a segmentation method for classifying burnt and grafted areas from images with meshed grafts. The segmented areas obtained were significantly consistent with those identified by the two dermatologists.

KEYWORDS:

• Skin graft
• image analysis
• evaluation method
• super pixel
• support vector machine

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the assistance received from Dr. Yasuhiko Kaita and Dr. Kei Yoshikawa from the Department of Trauma and Critical Care Medicine at the School of Medicine at Kyorin University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daijiro Wada

Daijiro Wada received the B.E., M.E. degree from Keio University, Japan, in 2017, 2019. He graduated School of Science and Technology, Keio University, 2019. His research interest is medical image processing for burn injury.

Soichiro Kato

Soichiro Kato received MD (2007) and PhD in medicine (2021) in Japan. He is a board-certified surgeon of the Japanese Society for Burn Injuries. His research interests focus on technologies improving ambulatory and acute care settings.

Yoshihiro Yamaguchi

Yoshihiro Yamaguchi received MD (1986) and PhD in medicine (1994) in Japan. He is currently heading many research projects as the Professor and Chair of the Department of Trauma and Critical Care Medicine at Kyorin University, Japan.

Toshiyuki Tanaka

Toshiyuki Tanaka received Ph. D. degrees in Instrumentation Engineering from Keio University, Japan, in 1989, respectively. He is currently a Professor in Keio University. His research interests focus on medical image processing.