AUGUST 13--The Bavarian Innovation Prize, worth EUR 100,000, has been awarded to DermoGenius from Linos (www.linos.com) for the early detection of skin cancer.
Reproducibility in image generation is the crucial factor in the computer-based diagnosis of pigmented skin changes. Standardized recording conditions are therefore vital for registration and image analysis in the case of skin changes. Feature visualization, diagnosis support, and teledermatoscopy only make sense with a standardized recording mode.
What is known as the ABCD rule has proved to be successful in the evaluation of melanocytary skin changes in conventional dermatoscopy. This involves an examination of the surface structure, asymmetry, color, and profile. Experienced examiners can make a dermatoscopic evaluation afterward in many cases. A visual assessment is not, however, always easy. Due to the improvement in image resolution by employing special camera technologies and software algorithms used in space exploration, the individual parameters can be recorded quantitatively with DermoGenius, while additional features can be presented to supplement the established ABCD rule.
The DermoGenius system determines the Digital Standardized Dermatoscopic Point Score on the basis of these features, compares this score with a reference database (formed from the biggest central examination database with 16,000 images from more than 6000 patients, and presents the results in a histogram. In doubtful cases, a diagnostic proposal is made, which reaches a diagnostic reliability level of more than 90%. The main innovations relate to the software, the interface for image recording, the standardized procedure, and the evaluation algorithms.
