Skin cancer device launched

A device for the early detection of skin cancer has been launched by Sydney-based medical device company, Polartechnics.

Victor Skladnev, the managing director, said Polartechnics saw the SolarScan device as a product platform for melanoma monitoring as well as for a range of skin conditions such as psoriasis and wound response.

Development of the device, in collaboration with the CSIRO and the Sydney Melanoma Unit, took the company eight years. And although no clinical trials were done, it is believed to have a diagnostic accuracy of up to 90 per cent, he said.

"It has to be extremely robust," he said. The researchers took a long time to develop the correct algorithms to enable the camera optics to capture a precise and reproducible image.

Skladnev said the device costs $10,000 and it would recover the costs of development through the scheduled per-use fees which will be negotiated with doctors who purchase the device.

He believed that hundreds of non-specialist GPs and skin specialists will use SolarScan.

It would be used by GPs who are often at the front line in detecting melanomas and by skin specialists to overcome the limitation of the naked eye and memory, he said.

After the Australian launch by Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran, Skladnev said Polartechnic was considering the international market but had not yet formed a proper opinion.

The diagnostic device detects skin conditions such as melanoma by capturing an image of the patient's skin using a hand-held machine with a built-in surface microscope.

Image analysis software takes the image, focussing on skin colour and shape, and then compares it against images of melanomas and non-melanomas in a database.

The image can then be stored to monitor future changes in moles.