INSTRUMENTAL MEASUREMENT OF SKIN COLOR AND SKIN TYPE AS RISK-FACTORS FOR MELANOMA - A STATISTICAL CLASSIFICATION PROCEDURE

A statistical procedure to evaluate melanoma risk in Caucasian subject s on the basis of colorimetric measurement of skin colour and Fitzpatr ick phototype is described. One hundred and sixty melanoma patients an d 546 randomized healthy subjects of similar age, sex and place of ori gin were examined in the same period for skin colour using a tristimul us colorimeter and for Fitzpatrick phototype. A clinical score for cla ssification purposes was obtained by statistical discriminant analysis with multivariate data transformation and dimension reduction techniq ues. A Fisher linear classifier was chosen for its simplicity and robu stness in correctly predicting melanoma risk in new subjects. The clas sification rule was designed to avoid classifying subjects at high ris k for melanoma as low risk, i.e. to give a negligible number of false negatives at the expense of more false positives. The procedure is obj ective and readily adapted to different clinical requirements. This is only a preliminary study but it is hoped that by performing more comp lex statistical analyses, e.g. neural networks, and adding other param eters (proven risk factors such as number of naevi) the performance wi ll be further improved. (C) 1998 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.