New technologies for medical colour measurements

There are two general methods for analyzing the color of an object, visual and instrumental, and both are used in medicine. For many years it has been mainly the visual method that has been used for the examinations of patients, whereas color measurement instruments have been used in laboratories. This was due to the high cost of these devices, since they contained a monochromator or other high-precision parts. Furthermore, these instruments were 'table models,' fairly heavy, large, and non-portable, and therefore, not easy to operate under clinical conditions. The application of new technologies and the latest hardware and software developments to color measurement systems/sensors has greatly simplified their implementation, increased their speed, and reduced their size and cost, so that colorimetric instrumentation is now practicable in many medical applications. Non-invasive clinical measurements, monitoring techniques, and determinations of very small color differences can now be achieved, giving much better opportunities for making correct diagnoses and identifying illnesses at an earlier stage.