Determining the diagnostic Utility of AMBLor for Classification of Atypical pigmenTed lesioNs in the Ageing Population (CATNAP)

人们的寿命比100年前更长，但许多人的晚年健康状况不佳。医疗保健的注意力主要是通过鼓励人们保护皮肤免受阳光照射来预防皮肤癌等疾病。对于老年人来说，这可能为时已晚，因为他们已经有皮肤损伤的迹象，棕色/黑色的生长物，他们可能担心是癌症。目前，测试这些生长物是否是癌症的主要方法是将其切除，并由病理学家进行评估。大多数生长可以被分类为癌性或非癌性，但对于某些生长，仅在显微镜下观察很难分辨，因此进行DNA分析。这可能是不确定的，而且是昂贵的。无法确定生长是否是癌症，可能会导致对患者进行多次预约，以寻找癌症的任何迹象。这可能会给人们带来压力，尤其是对老年人来说，这可能更糟，因为他们可能因为其他医疗条件而无法参加后续预约和接受治疗，因为他们移动的较少，或者因为他们无法旅行。我们已经有一种用于黑色素瘤（一种皮肤癌）的测试，以挑选出那些最不可能扩散的肿瘤。它寻找覆盖肿瘤的皮肤中是否存在两种蛋白质。我们还使用该测试来研究各种临床上令人担忧的棕色/黑色皮肤生长，这表明该测试可用于识别那些不是癌症的生长。在这项新的研究中，我们将观察老年人中常见的大量棕色/黑色生长物，并测试我们是否可以正确地挑选出那些不是癌症的生长物。这将支持该测试作为一种产品的开发，该产品可用于病理学实验室，以挑选出不危险的生长。没有危险的生长的人不必参加不必要的医院预约，这将减轻压力，并为NHS和世界各地的其他医疗保健提供者节省资金。

People are living longer than they did 100 years ago but many spend their later years in poor health. The attention in healthcare is mainly on the prevention of diseases such as skin cancer, by encouraging people to protect their skin from the sun. For older people this can be too late as they will already have signs of skin damage in the form of brown/black growths that they may worry are cancer.Currently the main way to test if these growths are cancer or not, is to cut out them out, and have them assessed by a pathologist. Most growths can be classified as cancerous or not cancerous, but for some growths it is difficult to tell from looking under the microscope alone so analysis of DNA is carried out. This can be uncertain and is expensive. Inability to determine whether the growth is cancer of not may result in following up the person for numerous appointments to look out for any signs of cancer. This can be stressful for people, and for older people particularly, this may be worse as they may be less able to attend the follow-up appointments and undergo treatments due to their other medical conditions, because they are less mobile, or because they are unable to travel.We already have a test which is used for melanoma (a type of skin cancer) to pick out those tumours which are least likely to spread. It looks for the presence or absence of two proteins in the skin overlying the tumour. We have also used this test to look at a variety of clinically worrying brown/black skin growths, and this suggested that the test could be used to identify those growths which are not cancers. This would allow medical teams to give people to correct results and the right treatments.In this new study, we will look at a large number of brown/black growths which are common in the elderly, and test whether we can correctly pick out those growths which are not cancer. This will support the development of the test as a product which can be used in pathology labs to pick out the growths which are not dangerous. People with growths which are not dangerous would not have to attend unnecessary hospital appointments, which will reduce stress, and save money for the NHS and other healthcare providers around the world.