Scanner goes skin deep to reveal the secrets of psoriasis

The scanner is said to provide clinically relevant information, such as the structure of skin layers and blood vessels, without the need for contrast agents or radiation exposure.

A team of researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) describe the technology in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease that is characterised by patches of severely scaling skin. The disease is estimated to affect between ten and fifteen million people in the European Union.

Currently, doctors assess the severity of the disease based on visual assessment of features of the skin surface, such as redness or thickness of the flaking skin.

"Unfortunately, these standards miss all parameters that lie below the surface of the skin, and may be subjective," said Dr Juan Aguirre, group leader at the Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging (IBMI) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. "Knowing the structure of the skin and vessels before treatment can provide the physician with useful information.”