• OCT scanner improves early skin cancer diagnosis, reduces need for skin biopsies

    A multi-beam OCT scanner improves diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma at an earlier stage and reduces diagnostic biopsies by 36%.
    Oct. 21, 2015
    2 min read

    Multi-beam optical coherence tomography (OCT) device maker Michelson Diagnostics (Maidstone, Kent, England) has new data showing that use of the company's VivoSight OCT scanner significantly improves diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) at an earlier stage and reduces diagnostic biopsies by 36%. Scanning with the device provides clinicians with continuous images of the epidermis and superficial dermis of the skin that can be interpreted by a medical professional during the diagnostic process.

    Related: OCT scanner yields positive clinical results in basal cell carcinoma diagnosis

    “The data showed that VivoSight OCT improved diagnostic certainty for BCC by a factor of four over clinical examination alone, and improved diagnostic accuracy by 50%,” explains Orit Markowitz, MD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital.

    OCT scan images of nodular (top) and superficial (bottom) basal cell carcinomas. (Credit: Michelson Diagnostics)

    Compared to clinical and dermascopic evaluation, VivoSight OCT significantly (p<0.01) improved sensitivity and specificity, correctly diagnosing in 87.8% of BCC cases compared to 57.4% for clinical and 69.6% for dermoscopy. Use of the device in diagnosis of BCC also allowed more than 1 in 3 patients (36%) to avoid a diagnostic biopsy.

    Images seen onscreen when a dermatologist scans a patient using the VivoSight OCT scanner. (Credit: Michelson Diagnostics)

    VivoSight has CE/TGA regulatory clearance and FDA clearance in the U.S. It is available for sale in Europe, the U.S., and Australia.

    Full data appears in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology. For more information, please visit www.vivosight.com.

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