Examining Pigmented Skin Lesions: A New iPad Tool Tested in Hospitals

Scientists have been trialing a new signal-processing image analysis technology in hospitals to check out suspicious colored moles that were sent for biopsies. This technology, called Moletest, was tested on an iPadPro11 by using four different versions of its analysis software. The main goal was to show that Moletest could correctly identify non-melanoma cases at least 95% of the time. The software worked by recognizing the border of the lesion and performing analysis within that area. If any of the five algorithms detected signs of melanoma, the lesion was flagged as 'melanoma not excluded. ' Out of 1, 573 lesions from 1, 365 participants, 1, 389 cases had both a valid test result and a clear histology report. These reports either said 'not-melanoma' or 'melanoma. ' The results showed varying sensitivity and specificity rates across the four versions, suggesting that the tool might not be super reliable for diagnosing melanoma just yet.