Son develops early skin cancer detector device after mom gets ill

Ofir Aharon was working on his doctorate in electro-optics when his mother was diagnosed with melanoma, a common type of skin cancer that can be deadly. The disease affects people of all colours and races.

“She could have detected the melanoma before it became cancerous, but she missed a doctor appointment,” said Aharon. That made him wonder why the cancer was not detected in its earlier stages, which would have helped his mother recover quicker from the disease.

Aharon found out that the dermascopes used to detect melanoma are only useful after there has been a colour change to the skin. Aharon then created a handheld device that works together with software that can identify moles or lesions even before the skin colour changes.

This technology is called DOSI, or Differential Optical Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging. It analyses the interaction of light and tissue, detecting changes in the way light penetrates the tissue when there is a distortion of the tissue (which is what happens when cancer is developing or a cosmetic problem starts to emerge).

"The light that is scattered back from the tissue to the camera changes, enabling us to see small changes in the tissue. The algorithm we have developed can quantify and measure these changes. Our DOSI scan is a map of changes. It has nothing to do with colour but says something about the underneath distortion. In this way, you can see even the smallest of changes in the tissue. Our device is using the power of artificial intelligence to analyze and compare much more information derived from the dermoscopic images of the lesions to supply the dermatologist information which was thus far unavailable to support his clinical decision. It is an added instrument that will help us make more precise and correct decisions", the inventor added.

The device, still a prototype, is named BlueSky and in preliminary clinical studies at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba had a 100 percent detection rate in 77 skin lesions.

Ofir created his own company, Scade Medical, around this solution. He is now raising funds to help create the final product – the hand-held device together with the software – and guide it through regulatory approvals in Europe and the US.

Adapted from: http://bit.ly/30yACVH

More info: http://scade-medical.com/