Tech |3/14/2013 @ 1:25PM |899 views
Simply Amazing! Instantly Diagnose Melanoma with the Flash of a Light.
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A Billionaire Wife's Very Personal And Passionate War Against Melanoma Luisa Kroll
Forbes Staff
Early detection is your best defense.
It is widely accepted that early cancer detection not only offers the best possible chances for successful treatment, but also saves health care costs and a large overburden to the health care system.
Innovations in the methods for early detection and treatment have helped to decrease overall US cancer mortality rates. Some notable exceptions to the general decline of cancer rates are melanoma of the skin, cancers of the liver, pancreas, and uterus. It is estimated that in the United States 76,250 men and women (44,250 men and 32,000 women) will be diagnosed with and 9,180 men and women will have died of melanoma of the skin in 2012. That’s a slightly higher than 1 person every hour of every day in the US that dies of melanoma. Whether you are a highly trained dermatologist using a dermatoscope (a magnifying lens with a light source) or even high-technology multispectral imaging systems or just performing a low-technology self exam in the comfort of your own home – using eyeballs alone to make a decision based on morphological assessment of a suspicious mole can confuse the best of them. Few technological advances have been developed to help augment subjective visual diagnosis for early skin cancer detection. A new device has been developed in Canada using a real-time laser system called Raman spectroscopy.
Reflected light that creates a chemical signature of your skin.
Modern Raman spectroscopy shines a laser onto a material and interprets the reflected light to learn more about its’ biochemical composition. In recent years, to study and utilize Raman spectroscopy, units were massive in size, overly bulky, complicated and expensive. Often a PhD was required just to operate a RS unit and this still took a great amount of time and experience, not at all practical for medical applications. The science is changing and rapidly. This is potentially bad news for cancer. Scientists in Canada, at the British Columbia Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia have developed a new Raman spectroscopy device, now called the Verisante Aura, that incorporates all of the modern day technological advancements