Vínicius C. Brand, Rosilene C. A. de Souza, Hélio Pedrini, Hermênio C. Lima
Surg Cosmet Dermatol. 2009;1(1):15-20
Abstract
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Introduction: Dermatologists get an idea of how old a patient is by looking at his/her facial wrinkles. There are several methods to quantify skin microrelief and wrinkles.
Objective: To use imaging processing technology to assess the wrinkle area and its interrelation with dermatologists subjective impression.
Material and methods: One hundred seventy-one volunteers, randomly selected, aged 18-69 years, both gender, Fitzpatrick skin type II-IV, with Glogau scale index I-IV were selected. Digital photography was obtained in two different conditions: relaxed or contract wrinkle condition (CWC), and at least 6 repeated pictures for checking the repeatability of each method. Six participating dermatologists evaluated the pictures and ascertained patients’ wrinkle using a digital pen. Wrinkle intensity was done by 3 different image processing methods. Quantitative assessment of facial skin folds intensity, and inter- plus intramethod consistency were determined and compared to manual evaluation.
Results: Dermatologists variability was 61.49%. Intratests agreement varied from 4.4 to 31%. The gradient method had the best results and detected the wrinkle conditions (p < 0.001). Also, this method had a positive correlation with the manual assessment.
Conclusions: Periorbital wrinkles could be determined by digital image processing. Dermatologists had internal precision but low accuracy. Sobel operator digital processing is a valid and reliable instrument for quantitative wrinkle assessment.
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