Lo. Svaasand et al., TISSUE PARAMETERS DETERMINING THE VISUAL APPEARANCE OF NORMAL SKIN AND PORT-WINE STAINS, Lasers in medical science, 10(1), 1995, pp. 55-65
Port-wine stain is a congenital birthmark consisting of an abnormal de
nsity of blood vessels in the upper dermis. The enlarged blood volume
gives the lesion a red to purple colour. The aim of the treatments is
to destroy the vessels to the extent necessary for obtaining a normal
skin coloration. Thus, in principle, all relevant information about th
e lesion should be contained in a reflectance spectrum in the visible.
However, the relation between the reflectance spectrum and tissue par
ameters such as scattering, melanin content and blood distribution is
somewhat composite. This work tries to enlighten this relation in term
s of a very simple analytical mathematical model, and it is demonstrat
ed that such a model at least will contribute to a qualitative underst
anding of the relevance of the various parameters.