Skin disease has gradually become a major public health problem due to a large number of patients and impact on their physical and mental health. There are more than 6000 kinds of skin diseases, and the prevalence rate of the population is nearly 100%. In the United States, the annual medical expenses caused by skin diseases are as high as $75 billion. Facing the huge medical demand, although the traditional diagnostic method based on naked eye is easy to perform, it is difficult to meet the requirements of accurate diagnosis. Although skin biopsy is the gold standard for the diagnosis of skin diseases, it is invasive, time-consuming, and expensive, which increases the cost and is difficult to apply on a large scale.
Noninvasive skin imaging technologies, such as dermoscopy, confocal laser scanning microscope, and high-frequency ultrasound, have emerged one after another, making up for the shortcomings of naked eye and skin biopsy. Among them, skin ultrasound has not attracted extensive attention. The reason is that the frequency of the traditional ultrasound transducer is relatively low(<15 MHz), which is difficult to display the superficial and tiny structures of the skin.In recent years, the transducer frequency has developed from 20 MHz, 30 MHz to 50 MHz or even 70 MHz,and it gradually has the ability to display the tiny structures of skin. Therefore,it has become a hotspot in the skin imaging technology. Compared with dermoscopy, high-frequency ultrasound can evaluate skin diseases on the vertical scale, providing impor-tant information below the skin surface.
Based on our experience in skin high-frequency ultrasound diagnosis for several years, we deeply realize the difficulty to master this technique, espe-cially for the beginners. Skin ultrasound is closely associated with two disci-plines: dermatology and ultrasound medicine. The long-term lack of intersection between the two has increased the difficulty of getting started with skin ultrasound. And a professional textbook is lack at present.
Skin Disease Hospital of Tongji University is a well-known tertiary der-matology hospital in China, attracting a large number of patients with various skin diseases. Based on this, we have accumulated thousands of complete ultrasound image data of skin diseases confirmed by pathology. Therefore, we summarized our cases into this book, so as to achieve a close combination of dermatology, pathology, and ultrasound images.
This book was organized by the Shanghai Engineering Technology Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment. Many doctors have devoted a lot of time to the publication of this book. At the same time,many experts have given help and guidance to our work. We would like to express my heartfelt thanks. We hope this book will support the beginners to carry out skin ultrasound examinations, and further delivering high-quality service to patients. As the ultrasound diagnostic standards for many skin diseases have not been established, some common skin diseases are not included because it is difficult to obtain pathological diagnosis. Because the level of editors is limited, omissions are inevitable, the criticism and correction from readers and experts will help us to improve in future editions.
Huixiong Xu
Shanghai, China Lehang Guo
Shanghai, China Qiao Wang
Shanghai, China August 2021
Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Skin Disease Hospital Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth Peoples Hospital Shanghai Engineering Technology Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment
Ultrasound Research and Education Institute, School of Medicine Tongji University