Multispectral imaging based on a Smartphone with an External CMOS camera for Detection of Seborrheic Dermatitis on the Scalp

To date, the incident rates of various skin diseases have increased due to hereditary and environmental factors including stress, irregular diet, pollution, etc. Among these skin diseases, seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis are a chronic/relapsing dermatitis involving infection and temporary alopecia. However, they typically exhibit similar symptoms, thus resulting in difficulty in discrimination between them. To prevent their associated complications and appropriate treatments for them, it is crucial to discriminate between seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis with high specificity and sensitivity and further continuously/quantitatively to monitor the skin lesions during their treatment at other locations besides a hospital. Thus, we here demonstrate a mobile multispectral imaging system connected to a smartphone for selfdiagnosis of seborrheic dermatitis and further discrimination between seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis on the scalp, which is the more challenging case. Using the system developed, multispectral imaging and analysis of seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis on the scalp was carried out. It was here found that the spectral signatures of seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis were discernable and thus seborrheic dermatitis on the scalp could be distinguished from psoriasis by using the system. In particular, the smartphone-based multispectral imaging and analysis moreover offered better discrimination between seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis than the RGB imaging and analysis. These results suggested that the multispectral imaging system based on a smartphone has the potential for self-diagnosis of seborrheic dermatitis with high portability and specificity.