Novel illumination system for a smartphone-attachable dermoscope

今天，皮肤科医生无法足够快地看到足够多的疑似皮肤癌患者， 筛查和早期诊断皮肤癌，这是北美最常见的癌症。因此，委员会认为， 患者等待皮肤科医生进行皮肤癌诊断的时间过长。MetaOptima设计并 开发了MoleScope（TM），一种低成本的照明放大镜（称为皮肤镜）， 智能手机的摄像头来获取皮肤病变的放大图像。MetaOptima在世界上推出MoleScope 2015年6月在温哥华举行的皮肤病学大会。该产品已在加拿大、欧盟、美国和 澳大利亚作为1类医疗器械，用于采集、存储和传输皮肤表面照片。 使用MoleScope，患者可以捕获图像，供皮肤科医生远程查看， 进行快速有效的皮肤癌诊断。MoleScope智能手机应用程序目前用于 随着时间的推移监测皮肤病变，以早期识别皮肤癌。 该项目的目的是将一种新的照明方法纳入MoleScope设备。通过 取代目前专业皮肤镜中使用的精密光学和照明组件， 照明设计将使MoleScope能够以相当低的成本获得高质量的图像。项目 还将探索结合偏振滤光器以减少皮肤表面反射的可能性， 使皮肤镜能够用于快速观察病变而不接触皮肤， 皮肤表面以下的结构，这对基底细胞癌的诊断非常重要。 与MetaOptima Inc.合作，该提案旨在利用PI在光子学方面的专业知识， 光学，开发这种新型低成本皮肤镜的原型。

Today, dermatologists cannot see enough suspected skin cancer patients fast enough for timely and effective screening and early diagnosis of skin cancers, the most common cancer in North America. Consequently, patients are waiting too long to access dermatologists for skin cancer diagnosis. MetaOptima has designed and developed MoleScope(TM), a low-cost illuminated magnifier (called a dermoscope) that attaches to a smartphone's camera to acquire magnified images of skin lesions. MetaOptima launched MoleScope at World Congress of Dermatology in Vancouver in June 2015. The product is registered in Canada, EU, US and Australia as a Class 1 medical device for the capture, storage and transfer of photographs of skin surfaces. Using MoleScope, patients can capture images for remote review by their dermatologist, allowing their doctor to perform fast and effective skin cancer diagnosis. The MoleScope smartphone app is currently being used to monitor skin lesions over time, for early identification of skin cancer. The aim of this project is to incorporate a new method of illumination into the MoleScope device. By replacing the precise optical and lighting components currently used in professional dermoscopes, this new lighting design will enable MoleScope to acquire high quality images at considerably lower cost. The project will also explore the possibility of incorporating polarizing filters to reduce reflections from the skin surface, enabling the dermoscope be used to quickly view lesions without skin contact, and also to reveal circulatory structures below the surface of the skin which are very important for diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma. Working with MetaOptima Inc., this proposal aims to engage and access the PI's expertise in photonics and optics, to develop a prototype of this novel low-cost dermoscope.