WEDNESDAY, Feb. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they've
developed a new and potentially more accurate way to diagnose
melanoma lesions, using laser technology.
The laser equipment spots key differences in pigmentation
between healthy skin and cancerous tissue, the team explained.
As currently envisioned, the new screening procedure would still
require excision of suspicious moles (otherwise known as a tissue
biopsy) before the laser-imaging diagnosis could be attempted.
However, preliminary indications suggest that the approach will be
more precise than current screening procedures, which can often
leave patients with inconclusive results and unnecessary
surgeries.
Researchers from Duke University's Center for Molecular and
Biomolecular Imaging (CMBI) in Durham, N.C., discuss the technique
in the Feb. 23 issue of
Science Translational Medicine. The work was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, and the fifth-
and sixth-most common cancer overall for American men and women,
respectively, according to background information in the study. In
2009, over 68,000 new cases of melanoma were diagnosed in the
United States, according to the American Cancer Society, and about
8,700 patients died from the disease.
Pathologists have been somewhat frustrated by standard
techniques designed to catch the disease, the study authors noted.
These techniques include the use of a light and magnifying glass
and the removal and analysis in the laboratory of sample cells. The
researchers pointed out that even lab analysis yields only about 85
percent diagnostic accuracy.
The Duke research team, including CMBI director Warren S. Warren
and Duke graduate student Thomas Matthews, tried out the lasers on
42 skin slices, pumping two beams -- smaller than those emitted by
everyday laser pointers -- at the target moles. The laser energy
that was absorbed shifted around the sampled skin cells,
highlighting microscopic differences in skin pigmentation.
Because melanoma cells happen to have more of a particular
pigment called "eumelanin" than do healthy cells, this dynamic
allowed the researchers to easily identify signs of cancer. The
method was 100 percent accurate in identifying all 11 cases of
melanoma present in the test slides, the study authors said in a
university news release.
The Duke team noted that testing is ongoing, including an effort
to develop a method that would allow dermatologists to laser screen
for melanoma without the need for the lesion to be removed.
In the opinion of Dr. Vijay Trisal, assistant professor of
surgical oncology at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte,
Calif., the current move to fashion a new screening tool for
melanoma "is a very worthy effort."
"And that is because in addition to biopsies not always showing clear-cut results, we also just do too many of them," Trisal noted. "Out of every 100 people who undergo a biopsy today, just one will prove to be malignant, which suggests that we really should be doing less of them in the first place. And I expect that . . . the further development of this kind of new diagnosis approach will eventually lead to just that: reducing our need for these kind of unnecessary procedures."
More information
For more on melanoma diagnosis, visit the
American Cancer Society.