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Biotech Technology

New Device to Detect Skin Cancer From A Picture? 79

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the snapshot-physicals dept.
JonathanGCohen writes "News.com is reporting on a new machine that can tell you all about your skin's unique features (excessive oil, UV damage, etc.) using an image scan and software to analyze it. Its inventors plan on developing a version that can even detect skin cancer." From the article: "Apart from numbers, the technology, called Clarity Pro, can depict the depth and severity of wrinkles in a 3D chart, show the extent of bacteria-filled pores in a graph, or represent UV damage in purple dots scattered about your face in a white-light image. It can also calculate how long a person can be exposed to the sun, in minutes or hours a day, before incurring more UV damage."
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New Device to Detect Skin Cancer From A Picture? More

New Device to Detect Skin Cancer From A Picture?

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  • Dogs (Score:2, Funny)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 )
    That's absolutely amazing. Very cool. They should also research the dogs that can sniff out cancer. I'm sure that would be a much cheaper (and more fun) solution for patients.

    • Re:Dogs (Score:2, Funny)

      by tutori ( 821667 )
      Except the dogs would only find the cancer if it was in your butt...

    • Re:Dogs (Score:2, Informative)

      by 955301 ( 209856 )
      Here's [reuters.com] an interesting read about the dogs:

      What's intriging to me about this is that there is an honorable mention of the actual data from the study. Usually news reports wash over this and just blurt out a percentage. I look forward to the day there is also a link to the test data.

    • I hate to be a party pooper, but I have doubts about this whole article. I spent many years working in image analysis (not that long ago!) and the claims they make seem extreme to me. Granted, they give no technical details, so I can't give a proper opinion. One point that worries me, though, is the reference to "chromofours (or acne-causing bacteria)". To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing. Google returns no hits; Google scholar returns no hits; dictionary.com returns no hits. There is such a
      • Hang on, that connects if it's just journalism cocking it up.

        Bacteria which cause acne create chromophores. These absorb specific wavelengths which allow detection of the bacteria using images.

    • Re:Dogs (Score:5, Funny)

      by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:42PM (#14504191) Homepage Journal
      They should also research the dogs that can sniff out cancer. I'm sure that would be a much cheaper (and more fun) solution for patients.

      Doctor: I have bad news. You have advanced melinoma and have only a year to live. The good news is that Patches made the diagnosis! Didn't you, my good boy? Awww, now give the doomed patient some kisses.
    • The article's about cancer detection. The parent is about cancer detection. How exactly is this parent post off-topic?

    • Re:Dogs (Score:3, Funny)

      by wuffalicious ( 896539 )
      "Hello, Doctor."
      "Hello, this is our cancer sniffing hound, Woofy."
      "... why is he humping my leg?"
      "Well, sir, I'm afraid you have prostate cancer."

  • Pah! That's Nothing (Score:5, Funny)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:24PM (#14504005) Homepage Journal
    Utilizing spooky action at a distance, it would be possible to analyze every particle that comprises a living organism. Comparing the being's current structure (in a particular biological system) with multiple "healthy" models of the various systems, or "baseline" snapshots of the patient's previous states as stored in the global molecular structure databases, diagnoses become trivial. Oh damn! It's only 2006 and I keep forgetting to keep my mouth shut. Never mind.


    • Utilizing spooky action at a distance, it would be possible to analyze every particle that comprises a living organism.

      This thing will either be youth-obsessed America's godsend or nightmare, I can't decide.

      Basically this guy counted all the possibilities (that a typical american consumer can think of) and said, well its going to be one of these. Nice! Wait till these creeped out reporters come across Brundle Fly!

    • Was the picture taken on the beach? Does the subject looked tanned? Yup. Well odds-on chance of skin cancer for the Southern Hemisphere anyway!
    • Utilizing spooky action at a distance, it would be possible to analyze every particle that comprises a living organism.

      Awesome! So Werner *was* wrong, after all!

  • Typo (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by krbvroc1 ( 725200 )
    "News.com is reporting on a new machine [THAT] can tell you all about your skin's unique features (excessive oil, UV damage, etc.) using an image scan and software to analyze it. Its inventors plan on developing a version that can even detect skin cancer."

    In light of the other CmdrTaco story, how do I communicate this typo to 'ScuttleMonkey'. He has no email. What is the proper way to notify of an error so it can be fixed?

    • Ummm... you need to learn "Slinglish" to be able to read /. properly. Here are some examples of how to read the original story without concern for the placement of "THAT":

      1. "I hear pray tell of a new horseless carriage can go 25 miles per hour"!

      2. "So I know a guy can do some incredible things you wouldn't believe in it".

      3. "Finally. A refrigerator (what) can do deep freeze in an hour. Tremendous"!

      And so you see, it's not hard to ignor the use of the word "THAT" before the word "can". In fact, you can

    • Re:Typo (Score:5, Funny)

      by ScuttleMonkey ( 55 ) <`gro.todhsals' `ta' `yeknomelttucs'> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:36PM (#14504133) Homepage
      As CmdrTaco stated, we are human, errors are bound to happen from time to time. Any author can be reached via their name@slashdot.org for specific questions. However, the most efficient means of communication with a live body who can fix something immediately is daddypants@slashdot.org this will notify whomever is currently watching the site and can be corrected as soon as possible.

      We always appreciate assistance in making Slashdot a better place to be, and are all hoping to see much more admin/user participation in the near future. Thanks for the heads up. ~SM

      • Re:Typo (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This type of interaction with the editors of /. are exactly what many people wanted - I'm happy to see that you are all appearing more approachable now. It really does help people's image of the site, when they learn that the admins are actually taking into consideration the various comments and complaints.

        The improvement is great. Please, keep it up :)

      • Re:Typo (Score:2)

        by pz ( 113803 )
        I'm heartened to hear this.

        But why don't you make it EASIER to report errors? There isn't, as far as I can tell, even a difficult way listed somewhere on the site (and daddypants@slashdot just isn't memorable). Or adopt more of the Wiki model where there are a larger number of (unpaid) junior editors who have write access to the posts?

        I've lost track of the number of egregious errors I've seen that anything more than a half-hearted scanning would catch. I'd have been happy to make corrections; perhaps mo
        • Rest assured that there are many ideas being tossed around to make the site itself much more interactive which I'm sure you will be noticing in the near future. I can't go into much detail right now but the changes are coming and I am very excited about the direction that Slashteam is taking us.
    • I'm thinking that Slashdot editors should be required to have at least one grammar or spelling problem in every story. It'll take all the fun out of it for the spelling Nazis. Although I suppose it could lead to anti-spelling Nazis if an editor forgets to include a mistake...
  • Compare the test results of George Hamilton against Dick Clark!

  • News! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:30PM (#14504066) Homepage
    Company uses dubious technology to demonstrate another company's product is effective. Both companies praise each other. Companies make press releases picked up by magazine. Excitement all round!

  • What about fixing your skin? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:30PM (#14504067) Homepage

    I've noticed a trend in medical devices that clinics are marketing now for "peace of mind". There are scans for your heart, lungs, and now your skin. While I find the devices neat, they really don't fix anything. They seem just like another way for clinics to seperate money from you.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • Hey, if you prefer a real colonoscopy to a virtual one, go right ahead. :)

      If on the other hand, you'd prefer an MRI to an anal probe, you might want to check into it.

      Virtual colonoscopy (VC) uses x rays and computers to produce two- and three-dimensional images of the colon (large intestine) from the lowest part, the rectum, all the way to the lower end of the small intestine and display them on a screen. The procedure is used to diagnose colon and bowel disease, including polyps, diverticulosis, and
      • Perhaps you're not aware that virtual colonoscopy requires air in the bowel. Guess how they get it there? Anyone who thinks a virtual colonoscopy is non-invasive is simply mistaken. A tube in the ass is a tube in the ass.

        And by the way, sensitivity on virtual colonoscopy is 50% and specificity about the same. Honestly, I think I'd rather have the full on colonoscopy. The accuracy is MUCH better.
    • You are probably right about the fact that companies seem more and more intent on comodifying a level of "peace of mind" whose demands only grow as we become more and more intolerant of unforseen or imponderable events (i.e., life). However, skin cancer is no joke. My father has skin cancer he got from working in the middle east during the 70's when watching out for the sun wasn't as common as it is now. Every year we worry his cancer could pass to other organs and become more threatening, every couple of m
    • An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

      Being able to do high resolution scans of the body has been one of the biggest reasons of the recent drop in cancer mortality. Cancer treatments have improved over the years, sure, but the biggest reason that fewer people are dying from breast and colon cancer is that we can find tumors when they're small and treatable, and we don't have to wait until they're large and metastasized to 3 different organ systems before finding out that a person has cancer. S
    • You know what a sig line is? Use it instead of spamming us.

  • Not sure about the pores, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:30PM (#14504069)
    UV damage pictures have been around for a long time. I remember watching a short piece on the news at least a decade ago.

    Some UV damage examples [skincarephysicians.com]

  • Pr0n Stars (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:30PM (#14504070)
    Cool - now I can detect which porn stars have cancer :P
  • ... running this on a corpus of porn? mod +5, Scary as hell

  • I hope it becomes common! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @04:55PM (#14504321)
    For those of us that are at a high risk for skin cancer, this may be the beginning of something very good.

    My father was diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer when I was 16 and had to have a fair bit of skin from his legs removed. I went to see a dermatologist shortly afterwards who told me, and I quote, "You'll get skin cancer, it's just a matter of when." When you're 16, this is a pretty scary thing to hear from a doctor, but it's the best thing she could have done. Because of her warning, I check myself regularly (and have others check where I can't from time to time). I go see a dermatologist once a year for a checkup.

    At the age of 32, I noticed a mole that wasn't quite right. Turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). I was living on the beach in Southern Mexico at the time which probably isn't the best place for a person of my skin type, but I'm generally pretty careful about sun exposure. Anyway, the doctor told me he had never had anyone catch one so early. Had it not been for the doctor warning me 16 years earlier, I may have waited long enough that a simple excision wouldn't have been possible.

    I've known two people who have had melanoma. One died before his 20s and the other just barely caught it in time but has huge scars on his back from where it was removed. Early detection is crucial for those of us at risk. Melanoma is one of the most virulant and fatal forms of cancer. Caught early, it's very treatable, but the difference between early and too late can sometimes be a matter of just weeks.

    If this technology can become widespread and people at risk are given access to it, I have little question that it could save a lot of lives.

    • Are you Australian? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This sounds like a very typical story for Australia. We are a largely white population living in the tropics / sub-tropics. (Additionally we lose our ozone layer when the Antartic ozone hole grows too big). An effective skin cancer awareness campaign has been pushed into the public's mind consistently since the 70's. We did have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, though this has dropped drastically. However, it appears to be on the rise again, particularly in the younger population. Too much tim

    • Selenium & Large Doses of vitamin D Prevent.. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      most forms of cancer, including skin cancers. This is fairly new info, but worth repeating. Oncologists (cancer doctors) are aware of this, but it hasn't made it's way to general practitioners yet, and they don't stress nutrition anyway.

      D should be taken at 3-4 times the current RDA. Best way is to take about a tablespoonful of cod liver oil (yes, a _TABLE_spoonful), since then the odds of overdose are slim (you can get too much D, but when you take A with it, as in cod liver oil, you're usually OK).

      Biologi

  • uh oh. now not only girls notice my acne, but my computer does too! ohhhhh nooooooooooo!
  • I can detect a bullshit press release without reading it in its entirety....and I'm available TODAY!!!!

  • I hear he's into remote diagnostics...

  • Another reason to outlaw collecting biometrics... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @05:19PM (#14504539)
    Another reason to outlaw collecting biometrics...

    How cool: it can analyze a photo of you... and then your medical insurance provider can deny you medical insurance or charge you a higher premium due to your being in a higher "risk group".

    Just like they can look at whether you have an attached or detached ear lobe, and know whether or not you have a family history of coronary artery disease, or look at your thumb print, and know whether or not you have one of the three identified high risk genes for liver cancer, or see that you're black, and so have a higher risk of sicle cell.

    Unfortunately, a given gene can express in more than one way, including ways which are visible to biometric devices, or even the naked eye of a trained person. This is just another reason why biometric information should not be allowed to be collected or disclosed except under very specific conditions (e.g. HIPPA rules keep your doctor's office from selling information to drug companies or, worse, insurance companies).

    -- Terry
    • "or see that you're black, and so have a higher risk of sicle cell."

      Great, so they'll give me a discount because I'm less affected by malaria?

    • Meh... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @05:34PM (#14504673)
      Or, they could use it to find out you're in spectacular health and offer you a lower premium. Everyone pays an inflated rate and you can present your privately-obtained biometrics to bargain for a better rate.

      I think everyone should have decent healthcare, bad genetics or not, but why ignore that some people spent every summer baking on the beach or a portion of the population is at higher risk for heart disease because they eat tons of fast food and smoke?

      It's not going to be the popular opinion around here, but why should the insurance companies get shafted on covering your self-inflicted damage?

      • Re:Meh... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Politburo ( 640618 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @06:32PM (#14505078)
        Or, they could use it to find out you're in spectacular health and offer you a lower premium.

        Hahahaha.. right.

        It's not going to be the popular opinion around here, but why should the insurance companies get shafted on covering your self-inflicted damage?

        They don't.. that's the whole point of group insurance. People like me, who pay for insurance but almost never use it, subsidize the people who aren't as healthy. Try getting an individual comprehensive (not catastrophic) insurance plan.
        • Hello I am replying to this post because I can't reply to the archived post about reading poker hands that you discussed earlier. Have you found any new developments with comparing the images to decipher the card?
      • Moral scientists and engineers would not/should not enable certain technologies.

        It's a hard problem to damage the Internet as a whole these days because it was designed in such a way as to preclude strong central control; people are slowly steadily chipping away at that.

        I don't think insurance companies are any less motivated by profit in setting their public policies that, say, RIAA.

        Remember that the primary driving force behind the amount of money you need to pay an insurance company is their outlay to me
    • Insurance already discriminates. Those under age 25 are in a higher risk group on the road, they pay a premium. Males are even higher risk, they pay a premium. Too many years working in IT with a bad posture has taken it's toll on my back requiring regular chiro to make life enjoyable, so I have to have a spinal exclusion on my income protection policy. Thankfully I'm relatively young and qualified, with a white collar job so that helps reduce my premiums.

      The whole industry works by pooling the funds of man
  • Yeah, but can it judge this in just 50 milliseconds [slashdot.org]?
  • Now my bad skin can be quantified. Praise $diety.
  • Now, with this device people can see they will get cancer, and accordingly spend more money on 'medicines' over a longer period of time until they die... No offense intended at those who have been affected by cancer (I have) but it really aggravates me to see doctors come up with more plans to make off with your money... although that's a lot of what they seem to do anyway.

  • MJ (Score:5, Funny)

    by Belseth ( 835595 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @06:13PM (#14504933)
    A picture of Michael Jackson revealed something truly shocking. He is in fact black. Apparently the rumors were true.
  • So... anyone got a torrent? :)

  • evil (Score:3, Insightful)

    by penguin-collective ( 932038 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @09:42PM (#14506232)
    Imaging-based skin diagnostics is an obvious and useful thing to do, but a lot of research and clinical studies still need to be done in order to develop, test, and validate it. If this company's patents stand, it will ensure that none of that is going to happen, because they themselves are not equipped to handle it or finance it even under the rosiest of forecasts, and nobody else has any reason to work on it if they can't use it afterwards.
  • If you are reading this thread:

    The good news is, you have no UV damage because you never go outside!

    The bad news is, if you ever did go outside, your pasty white "monitor tan" would get UV damage in 1.5 minutes!
  • They've been trying automated detection of other kinds of cancer, particularly routine microscopic pathologies for years. They've tryed all kinds of pattern recognition algorithms, neural nets, etc. Some goals are to reduce cost and increase reliability.
    Theres a legal problem too. If the computer guesses wrong (omissions) who is to blame- the pathologist? the software vendor? At best these will be flags, not determinations.

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