Slashdot Mirror
New Device to Detect Skin Cancer From A Picture?
JonathanGCohen writes "News.com is reporting on a new machine that can tell you all about your skin's unique features (excessive oil, UV damage, etc.) using an image scan and software to analyze it. Its inventors plan on developing a version that can even detect skin cancer." From the article: "Apart from numbers, the technology, called Clarity Pro, can depict the depth and severity of wrinkles in a 3D chart, show the extent of bacteria-filled pores in a graph, or represent UV damage in purple dots scattered about your face in a white-light image. It can also calculate how long a person can be exposed to the sun, in minutes or hours a day, before incurring more UV damage."
That's absolutely amazing. Very cool. They should also research the dogs that can sniff out cancer. I'm sure that would be a much cheaper (and more fun) solution for patients.
Developers: We can use your help.
Utilizing spooky action at a distance, it would be possible to analyze every particle that comprises a living organism. Comparing the being's current structure (in a particular biological system) with multiple "healthy" models of the various systems, or "baseline" snapshots of the patient's previous states as stored in the global molecular structure databases, diagnoses become trivial. Oh damn! It's only 2006 and I keep forgetting to keep my mouth shut. Never mind.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
In light of the other CmdrTaco story, how do I communicate this typo to 'ScuttleMonkey'. He has no email. What is the proper way to notify of an error so it can be fixed?
Compare the test results of George Hamilton against Dick Clark!
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
Company uses dubious technology to demonstrate another company's product is effective. Both companies praise each other. Companies make press releases picked up by magazine. Excitement all round!
-- SIGFPE
I've noticed a trend in medical devices that clinics are marketing now for "peace of mind". There are scans for your heart, lungs, and now your skin. While I find the devices neat, they really don't fix anything. They seem just like another way for clinics to seperate money from you.
http://religiousfreaks.com/UV damage pictures have been around for a long time. I remember watching a short piece on the news at least a decade ago.
Some UV damage examples
Cool - now I can detect which porn stars have cancer :P
I give myself 10 seconds
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Utilizing spooky action at a distance, it would be possible to analyze every particle that comprises a living organism.
This thing will either be youth-obsessed America's godsend or nightmare, I can't decide.
Basically this guy counted all the possibilities (that a typical american consumer can think of) and said, well its going to be one of these. Nice! Wait till these creeped out reporters come across Brundle Fly!
That's not melanoma. It is a cellular-peptide cake, with mint frosting.
... running this on a corpus of porn? mod +5, Scary as hell
For those of us that are at a high risk for skin cancer, this may be the beginning of something very good.
My father was diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer when I was 16 and had to have a fair bit of skin from his legs removed. I went to see a dermatologist shortly afterwards who told me, and I quote, "You'll get skin cancer, it's just a matter of when." When you're 16, this is a pretty scary thing to hear from a doctor, but it's the best thing she could have done. Because of her warning, I check myself regularly (and have others check where I can't from time to time). I go see a dermatologist once a year for a checkup.
At the age of 32, I noticed a mole that wasn't quite right. Turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). I was living on the beach in Southern Mexico at the time which probably isn't the best place for a person of my skin type, but I'm generally pretty careful about sun exposure. Anyway, the doctor told me he had never had anyone catch one so early. Had it not been for the doctor warning me 16 years earlier, I may have waited long enough that a simple excision wouldn't have been possible.
I've known two people who have had melanoma. One died before his 20s and the other just barely caught it in time but has huge scars on his back from where it was removed. Early detection is crucial for those of us at risk. Melanoma is one of the most virulant and fatal forms of cancer. Caught early, it's very treatable, but the difference between early and too late can sometimes be a matter of just weeks.
If this technology can become widespread and people at risk are given access to it, I have little question that it could save a lot of lives.
uh oh. now not only girls notice my acne, but my computer does too! ohhhhh nooooooooooo!
I can detect a bullshit press release without reading it in its entirety....and I'm available TODAY!!!!
I hear he's into remote diagnostics...
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Another reason to outlaw collecting biometrics...
How cool: it can analyze a photo of you... and then your medical insurance provider can deny you medical insurance or charge you a higher premium due to your being in a higher "risk group".
Just like they can look at whether you have an attached or detached ear lobe, and know whether or not you have a family history of coronary artery disease, or look at your thumb print, and know whether or not you have one of the three identified high risk genes for liver cancer, or see that you're black, and so have a higher risk of sicle cell.
Unfortunately, a given gene can express in more than one way, including ways which are visible to biometric devices, or even the naked eye of a trained person. This is just another reason why biometric information should not be allowed to be collected or disclosed except under very specific conditions (e.g. HIPPA rules keep your doctor's office from selling information to drug companies or, worse, insurance companies).
-- Terry
Yeah, but can it judge this in just 50 milliseconds?
Now my bad skin can be quantified. Praise $diety.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Dr. Van Nostrand (from the Institute) feels that in his professional opinion it would be better to let him take a biopsy with his meat slicer. And if you don't agree, your going down in his report!
"or see that you're black, and so have a higher risk of sicle cell."
Great, so they'll give me a discount because I'm less affected by malaria?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Now, with this device people can see they will get cancer, and accordingly spend more money on 'medicines' over a longer period of time until they die... No offense intended at those who have been affected by cancer (I have) but it really aggravates me to see doctors come up with more plans to make off with your money... although that's a lot of what they seem to do anyway.
Or, they could use it to find out you're in spectacular health and offer you a lower premium. Everyone pays an inflated rate and you can present your privately-obtained biometrics to bargain for a better rate.
I think everyone should have decent healthcare, bad genetics or not, but why ignore that some people spent every summer baking on the beach or a portion of the population is at higher risk for heart disease because they eat tons of fast food and smoke?
It's not going to be the popular opinion around here, but why should the insurance companies get shafted on covering your self-inflicted damage?
A picture of Michael Jackson revealed something truly shocking. He is in fact black. Apparently the rumors were true.
Was the picture taken on the beach? Does the subject looked tanned? Yup. Well odds-on chance of skin cancer for the Southern Hemisphere anyway!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So... anyone got a torrent? :)
I used a company over a year ago in the UK (in London) that had some really nice equipment to do exactly this kind of thing. In my case, I had a particuarly funny-looking mole checked out.
It worked based on a camera and large database of cases (particuarly of meloma) and some interesting AI to highlight dangerous/benign features of the skin looked at.
Site was www.themoleclinic.co.uk
This sounds like a very typical story for Australia. We are a largely white population living in the tropics / sub-tropics. (Additionally we lose our ozone layer when the Antartic ozone hole grows too big). An effective skin cancer awareness campaign has been pushed into the public's mind consistently since the 70's. We did have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, though this has dropped drastically. However, it appears to be on the rise again, particularly in the younger population. Too much time in the sun. Even geeks can be affected. The moral of this post is to go to your GP or specialist every other year and get examined. There's not a lot to recommend in dying long before you really have to.
I too got curious about what the results would be if this piece of software was presented with a shot of an exposed other end of a body.
At least it should be able to detect one huge, deep wrinkle, plus a major bacteria-filled pore!
Might indeed catch colon cancer in the process.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Awesome! So Werner *was* wrong, after all!
http://outcampaign.org/
Imaging-based skin diagnostics is an obvious and useful thing to do, but a lot of research and clinical studies still need to be done in order to develop, test, and validate it. If this company's patents stand, it will ensure that none of that is going to happen, because they themselves are not equipped to handle it or finance it even under the rosiest of forecasts, and nobody else has any reason to work on it if they can't use it afterwards.
If you are reading this thread:
The good news is, you have no UV damage because you never go outside!
The bad news is, if you ever did go outside, your pasty white "monitor tan" would get UV damage in 1.5 minutes!
Insurance already discriminates. Those under age 25 are in a higher risk group on the road, they pay a premium. Males are even higher risk, they pay a premium. Too many years working in IT with a bad posture has taken it's toll on my back requiring regular chiro to make life enjoyable, so I have to have a spinal exclusion on my income protection policy. Thankfully I'm relatively young and qualified, with a white collar job so that helps reduce my premiums.
The whole industry works by pooling the funds of many in the hope that you never actually have to use it, but when you do it is subsidised by others. It's essentially a lottery, if you never need your insurance you are ultimately out of pocket and handed over your money for nothing. If you do need it though, you "win" by reducing how much it costs you.
Those who are more likely to take benefit from the fund have always been expected to pay more.
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
That actually sounds like a good way to solve the stray problem: instead of just putting animals to sleep, send them to med schools to practice on. You don't want a surgeon's only experience to be cutting into the school's municipal corpse after a hundred students have already done so?
any F*PETA. they went around adopting pets and breaking their necks in vans.
Moral scientists and engineers would not/should not enable certain technologies.
It's a hard problem to damage the Internet as a whole these days because it was designed in such a way as to preclude strong central control; people are slowly steadily chipping away at that.
I don't think insurance companies are any less motivated by profit in setting their public policies that, say, RIAA.
Remember that the primary driving force behind the amount of money you need to pay an insurance company is their outlay to medical providers (plus their profit margin). The primary driving force behind that cost is facilities costs (plus individual malpractice insurance). The primary driving force behind individual malpractice insurance is the insurance companies outlay (plus their profit margin). The primary driving force behind facilities cost is real estate costs and equipment costs (plus administrative malpractice insurance, plus facility liability insurance). The primary driving force behind administrative malpractice insurance is the insurance companies outlay (plus their profit margin), and the primary driving force behind facility liability insurance is the insurance companies outlay (plus their profit margin). And finally, the primary driving force behind equipment costs is COGS, R&D (plus manufacturer liability insurance). The primary driving force behind manufacturer liability insurance is the insurance companies outlay (plus their profit margin).
So for every $ of medical benefit, we have basically the real costs, plus 5 profit margins for insurance companies, 1 profit margin for equipment manufacturers, 1 profit margin for the hospital, and one profit margin for the healthcare provider.
Seems a little unfair that the insurance company gets to deduct money paid by its right hand to its left hand as a business expense, and it seems ridiculous that, out of the bites that get taken from the pie, 5/8ths - 62.5% - of them go to what is likely the same insurance company. I might back off on that, if it were illegal for insurance companies to participate in adjacent vertical market segments, or share information between divisions to achive horizotal integration of risk management databases.
So despite your arguments here, I'm pretty much unconvinced that an inability to "share" personal health information between its components will drive insurance companies ot of business.
To speak directly to the argument on individual discrimination vs. risk pooling: there is no way, at present, to sufficiently control genetically-based risk of your children, let alone yourselves. Maybe when it's possible to edit our childrens genes, we can restart that discussion - ignoring that the technology will take a long time to become egalitarian in its availability.
As to giving up privacy for money/convenience: this keeps getting suggested everywhere in society these days, and I'm not buying it. The data mining done by stores based on their "club card" or whatever their loyalty marketing mechanism happens to be is only done statistically. Yes, it *could* be done individually - for example, they could correlate ingredients in purchased products at the grocery store vs. what you don't buy - and perhaps disclosed information - and keep some of their customers from dying from peanut allergies (as an example). Heck, this might even be a service *I'd* find worth disclosing information over. But no one is doing this, because as soon as you do that, you become part of the liability chain if the person dies from a product you sold. Instead, they use the aggregate information themselves, and sell the indiviual information to marketing companies, who then are permitted to invade your privacy because of "a prexisting business relationship".
People bitch about government being invasive of individual privacy in the U.S., but business is 10 or 100 times worse. The people who develop the technologies that enable this kind of crap should be ashamed of themselves": they are part of the problem.
-- Terry
How about the google cancer detector?
If Bill Frist can diagnose a non-vegatative state from a video tape, THIS should be EASY.
Finally we can figure out what the hell happened to Mr. Goatse. Oh, the wonders of modern medicine.
Table-ized A.I.
kramer@moesbar# wget http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/18/18322 32.shtml | grep -i seinfeld2 32.shtml | grep -i kruger2 32.shtml | grep -i george
kramer@moesbar#
kramer@moesbar# wget http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/18/1832
kramer@moesbar#
kramer@moesbar# wget http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/18/1832
kramer@moesbar#
Aaaaaw come on guys, photos and skin cancer? The perfect mix for a 25 minute show about nothing.
"This place has no management, I could go hog-wild in there!"
please type the word in this image: severe
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
So this will be the new trend for spam, popups and vaporware?
"YOU HAVE SKIN CANCER! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!"
They've been trying automated detection of other kinds of cancer, particularly routine microscopic pathologies for years. They've tryed all kinds of pattern recognition algorithms, neural nets, etc. Some goals are to reduce cost and increase reliability.
Theres a legal problem too. If the computer guesses wrong (omissions) who is to blame- the pathologist? the software vendor? At best these will be flags, not determinations.
D should be taken at 3-4 times the current RDA. Best way is to take about a tablespoonful of cod liver oil (yes, a _TABLE_spoonful), since then the odds of overdose are slim (you can get too much D, but when you take A with it, as in cod liver oil, you're usually OK).
Biologically-active Selenium can be toxic too, but it's mostly missing from soils, esp. in USA, which to some degree explains the proliferation of cancers there. Quit taking selenium if you start to smell bad (like garlic), your hair starts to fall out, or your thinking gets fuzzy.
Have a nice day!-))