This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project investigates a dermatological home monitoring tool. Two million Americans develop skin cancer every year and one in five Americans will be diagnosed with the condition in his or her lifetime. With better skin monitoring, skin cancer can be diagnosed in the earlier and more treatable stages, leading to improved patient outcomes and lower treatment costs. The proposed technology consists of an easy to use imager and web interface that allows patients to take clinical quality 2D and 3D images from the comfort of their homes. These images are uploaded automatically to a web interface and are analyzed to track changes in size and color. The images are also displayed for the dermatologist to review and monitor remotely. The project aims to build, test, and review our next generation prototype. After manufacturing a small number of imagers, a study will be conducted to test their effectiveness as a home monitoring system. Feedback from the dermatologists and patients who use the system will be used to improve the early prototype and prepare for commercialization.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project lies in the system?s expected ability to make teledermatology practical. This can revolutionize the current standard of dermatological care by allowing dermatologists to diagnose patients quickly and inexpensively. Dermatologists currently use magnifying lenses and digital cameras to image patients? skin lesions, but these methods do not have the capability to take standardized images and log them over time. More advanced equipment exists but is too expensive and complicated for patient use. The technology will capture an untapped market for a low cost skin monitoring solution that automatically creates electronic patient histories. Such a system could be of use in rural or remote areas, including developing countries, where dermatological care is unavailable or substandard. Additionally, the system can create a large database of de-identified images and case files from consenting patients. This resource could be used in future research to find trends among cancerous lesions and to help train dermatologists to diagnose skin conditions using 2D and 3D images.
Summary of Award Outcomes: 3Derm is developing an end-to-end teledermatology solution that can acquire three-dimensional skin images in a standardized, intuitive manner, and send these images to dermatologists for review. Under the NSF Phase I SBIR program, our team was able to develop a working prototype of the system and conduct a feasibility study that compared the diagnostic accuracy of this 3D imaging platform to the current teledermatology standard, the iPhone 5S camera. The results showed that our prototyped system had higher accuracy and could be used as a more effective triage tool than the mobile camera. Our next steps are to continue optical refinements using feedback received throughout the feasibility study, and move to develop a commercial product. Background: In the United States, the average wait time to see a dermatologist is 38 days due to a shortage and poor distribution of dermatologists. Teledermatology, the remote practice of dermatology, has the potential to greatly increase access to dermatology screenings. However, current methods employ mobile camera apps to have patients send images to a remote physician. These cameras lack the standardization and image quality needed to make safe and effective diagnoses. The challenge is to create a technology that is able to capture standardized medical grade images, while being accessible to patients in their daily lives. Impact: The work conducted under this award has resulted in the first major advancement of dermatology triage technology over the last decade. The ability to take standardized, repeatable skin images can not only be used in the specific application detailed in this project scope, but also in the fields of wound care and skin care research. In the long term, the information garnered from analyzing the resulting image database would have great potential for dermatology educational material and continuing education programs. Data scientists will be able to use this information to look for trends among the cancerous images that can inform the future development of automated diagnosis software. This award supported two full-time research positions as well as three part-time internships for undergraduate students, and has provided the foundation for a small business that currently employs four full-time employees and plans to double in size over the next year.
