New Digital Tool Trains Medical Professionals to Detect Skin Cancer at an Early Stage

Skipton, UK, 14^th July 2016. An app developed by the University of Edinburgh has been launched that aims to help medical professionals assess and detect skin cancer at an early stage and reduce unnecessary specialist referrals.

The new app, called Dermofit, uses specialist interactive, cognitive training modules and visual reference libraries to train medical students and healthcare professionals to more accurately identify skin lesions.

The result of 4-years of research and development by the University of Edinburgh, Dermofit provides trainee doctors, nurses and other non-specialist healthcare professionals with interactive resources that allow them to hone their ability to correctly identify specific skin lesion types and as a result improve the accuracy with which they can determine skin cancer diagnoses.

Simedics Limited, a Yorkshire-based company specialising in digital products and publishing for the healthcare industry, is the commercial partner responsible for bringing Dermofit to market.

Dermofit was devised by Professor Jonathan Rees, Grant Chair of Dermatology at the University of Edinburgh, who came up with the idea to develop a digital tool to help medical professionals accurately identifying malignant and benign skin lesion and skin growths at an early stage.

The app uses an algorithm which automatically groups library photos of skin lesions based on their colour and texture properties. Selecting from a library of more than 1,300 images, the Dermofit app will take the user to further sets of similar lesion types to illustrate the difference in lesions which may look similar but are from different skin lesion classes. Other modules allow users to further build and test their skills.

Professor Rees said: “Thirty per cent of doctors will automatically send a patient to a hospital if they have signs of a skin growth.

“But the evidence is that the vast majority of people who are seen and referred do not have skin cancer or anything serious at all.”

The use of cognitive teaching tools is a rapidly growing area of medical training which allows healthcare professionals to develop the necessary skills that are required to more accurately diagnose and treat patients in risk-free digital environments.

Bob Fisher, who specialises in computer vision and helped design the computer algorithms for the app, adds; "Dermofit contains a photo library of skin lesions to help inform practitioners to diagnosis more effectively. Practitioners can click on the image of a lesion of interest which then leads to further similar lesions. As lesions are selected, further sets of similar lesions are displayed. This gives familiarity with the different skin lesion types and allows users to differentiate between lesions that look similar, but that are from different skin lesion classes.”

Commenting on the launch, Matthew Driver CEO of Simedics said “we are extremely pleased to have partnered with the University of Edinburgh on this project and to have been able to bring this exciting innovation to market. Dermofit represents a new way of training non-specialist healthcare professionals to identify skin lesions and gain the skills necessary to spot skin cancers earlier and reduce unnecessary patient referrals to specialists.”

Dermofit is available to download from the App Store

(https://geo.itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dermofit/id1123662319?mt=8)

Press contact:

Matthew Driver, CEO of Simedics

matthew@simedics.org

01756 709605

07752 806814