Implementation of the 7-point checklist for melanoma detection on smart handheld devices

Abstract

In this paper we implement the 7-point checklist, a set of dermoscopic criteria widely used by clinicians for melanoma detection, on smart handheld devices, such as the Apple iPhone and iPad. The application developed is using sophisticated image processing and pattern recognition algorithms, yet it is light enough to run on a handheld device with limited memory and computational speed. When combined with a commercially available handheld dermoscope that provides proper lesion illumination, this application provides a truly self-contained handheld system for melanoma detection. Such a device can be used in a clinical setting for routine skin screening, or as an assistive diagnostic device in underserved areas and in developing countries with limited healthcare infrastructure.

Use of Smartphones for Early Detection of Melanoma: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…Thirty-one studies were included in the review ( Figure 1): twenty studies had been published as original articles [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], six were conference papers [51][52][53][54][55][56] and five were research letters [57][58][59][60][61].…”

“…Fourteen studies had been conducted in Europe-Great Britain [33,40,43,60], Austria [34,51], Sweden [36,37], Ireland [61], Germany [45], Switzerland [48], Greece [56], The Netherlands [50] and France [39], nine in the USA [38,42,44,46,52,53,55,57,62], seven in Australia [32,35,41,47,49,58,59], and one in Singapore [54].…”

“…Twenty-one studies focused on patients with suspected melanoma lesions [32][33][34][35][36][37][39][40][41][42][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][58][59][60][61], while eight studies analysed images compiled in data banks [44,[52][53][54][55][56][57]61]. Among the twenty-one studies with patients, eleven included patients in primary care: either in the context of a screening campaign [39,46,48] or during targeted screening focusing on patients at an elevated risk of melanoma [32,35,58,59] or during opportunistic screening conducted in general practice [34,60].…”

“…Thirteen studies assessed applications that did not require the intervention of a dermatologist [44,45,47,50,[52][53][54][55][56][57][60][61][62]: three compared the conclusions of an application to the conclusions of a dermatologist who conducted a face-to-face examination [45,50,60], two compared the conclusions of an application to the conclusions of a teledermatologist [47,61], and eight analysed the images of an already classified data bank [44,[52][53][54][55][56][57]62]. Eight studies assessed store-and-forward teledermatology by comparing the conclusions of a teledermatologist to the conclusions of a dermatologist who conducted a face-to-face examination [33,34,36,37,39,46,48,51].…”

“…Thirtheen studies assessed the performance of the mobile applications, referring either to their capacity to classify the lesions at risk [44,47,50,[52][53][54]56,57,[60][61][62] or to their diagnostic capacity [45,55] (Table 1). The references used were the histology results in seven studies [44,45,50,52,[60][61][62], the dermatologist's conclusion after dermoscopy in two studies [47,53], and the dermatologist's conclusion after a sole clinical examination in one study [55].…”