A team of students over at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur led by research scholar Debdoot Sheet has developed a mobile app that helps physicians speed up skin cancer diagnosis allowing them to handle more patients in less time.
The mobile app can be used on any smartphone and requires a clip-on device to be attached to the handset. The clip-on device basically illuminates the patient’s skin using a colourful flash while the smartphone’s camera takes a sequence of images.
The captured images are then uploaded to cloud based ‘DRICTION’ computational imaging service where they are processed for a consolidated diagnostic output that will help skilled paramedics in assessing the potential nature and risk of lesions while also suggesting an intervention of an expert in case of critical cases.
Sheet revealed that the mobile app is simple to operate and can be used by semi-skilled paramedics working in remote and rural areas. The app, which registered over 99 percent accuracy during clinical test phase in lab scale experiments , can be used to screen a range of skin related diseases including cancers, psoriasis, melanoma, inflammation, ulcers, lypoma, healing and non-healing wounds, heavy metal induced dysplasia among others.
“This in effect will facilitate high-throughput screening of patients at resource constrained or remotely located healthcare centers lacking even minimal access to expert physicians, but witnessing an exponential rise in deaths related to complex skin abnormalities,” Sheet said in a statement to Press Trust of India (PTI).
