Probe and method to obtain accurate area measurements from cervical lesions

摘要

The area of a three-dimensional lesion on a cervix is determined from a two-dimensional image of the cervix. A transparent area fixation probe is used to flatten the lesion just prior to photography. The image is analyzed using a personal computer and dedicated imaging software program that calculates the cosine of the slant angle of the planar defining platform of the area fixation probe. This is accomplished by determining the apparent minor to major axis ratio of a standardization circular icon present on the planar defining platform. The lesion itself is outlined by using a mouse pointing device and the number of pixels within the outlined region are counted. The inverse of the cosine of the slant angle is then used as a correction factor to obtain the true area of the lesion by multiplying the number of pixels within the region by the correction factor.