1. Know your impurities/skin porphyrin
Porphyrins are essential for the function of hemoglobin - a protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen. However, buildup of porphyrins can affect nerve system and/or skin. In skin, the buildup of porphyrin mostly appear in hair follicles (pores) where large amounts of porphyrin-producing skin bacterium reside. Due to increased sensitivity to sunlight and inflammations caused by bacteria porphyrins, a person with excessive skin porphyrin may experience:
- Sensitivity to the sun and sometimes artificial light, causing burning pain
- Itching, or sudden painful redness and swelling
- Fragile thin skin with changes in skin color
- Blisters on exposed skin
- Acnes and other inflammatory skin diseases
To assist diagnosis of impurities caused by skin porphyrin, up to 5 images can be taken under the UVL light using the Chowis Skin Analyzer. Our algorithm then evaluates the impurities in each image and combines the individual results to provide a final grading. To be specific, in each image we study the color intensity of porphyrins and classify them as red and blue, where:
- Red represents inflammatory porphyrins
- Blue is for other non-inflammatory porphyrins
| Captured Image | Analyzed Image |
|---|---|
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2. Chowis skin impurities grade
The following Chowis impurities grade has been co-developed by Chowis and dermatology experts. For each image, we detect impurities to provide a quantified Result score. The final score for impurities is computed as the Average of all result scores, and based on the scale shown in Table 1, we grade skin impurities into clear, almost clear, mild, moderate and severe. Also presented is an Average Per Age Group score to help understand how the skin impurities condition compares with peers.
| Grade | Scale | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Clear | 0 ~ 5 | Clear skin with little to no impurities |
| Almost Clear | 6 ~ 15 | Mild impurities resides in some pores |
| Mild | 16 ~ 48 | Moderate amount of impurities building up in many pores |
| Moderate | 49 ~ 80 | Severe buildup of impurities in large amount of pores |
| Severe | 81 ~ 99 | Very severe buildup of impurities in almost all pores |
| Clear |  |  |  |  |
| Almost Clear |  |  |  |  |
| Mild |  |  |  |  |
| Moderate |  |  |  |  |
| Severe |  |  |  |  |