Advanced Skin Cancer Detection Device: Dermasensor’s Breakthrough

Original Article: https://www.medtechdive.com/news/dermasensor-fda-clearance-ai-skin-cancer-detection-device/704857/

A Smart Device for Detecting Skin Cancer

Dangerous skin cancer such as melanoma is on the rise, and it is important that a diagnosis is made as early as possible when it is easier to treat. A company called Dermasensor has recently developed a novel technology consisting of a wireless handheld device, to find common skin cancers such as melanoma, basal cell cancer and squamous cell skin cancer. 

FDA has given the go-ahead

This device has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to study the amount light bouncing back from spots on the skin. This is because cancerous and non-cancerous spots reflect different types of light because of changes in the cells. By using AI, this device can spot these differences. In a study led by Mayo Clinic, the device showed 96% accuracy in finding cancer, which turned out to be superior to regular doctors who scored 83%.  The study included over 1,000 patients, across 22 study centers and examined more than 4500 skin spots. Overall, the device was most effective at finding basal and squamous cell cancer. The DermaSensor device was found to decrease the number of missed skin cancers by half (from 18% to only 9%). This is very good news!