•Notícia

Skin cancer is one of the diseases most difficult to diagnose. According to a study of 80,000 lesions suspected of being melanomas that was carried out on cases diagnosed over a period of ten years in top dermatological hospitals, for every real case of skin cancer specialists operate on eight incorrectly diagnosed cases. That is, eight out of nine cases of skin cancer are misdiagnosed and operated on unnecessarily. In the study Accuracy in melanoma detection: a 10-year multicenter survey, published in 2012 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, the error rate for non-specialist physicians is much higher, and there are 29 misdiagnoses for every correct diagnosis.

A system based on more accurate diagnostic information is therefore necessary. The European Union chose the Centre for Sensor, Instrument and Systems Development (CD6), on the UPC's Terrassa Campus, to lead the research project Diagnoptics, the aim of which is to design and create a system that allows skin cancer to be detected objectively.

The aim of the project, which has a budget of 4.7 million euros and is led by researcher Santi Royo, is to create a multispectral platform that combines four different photonic technologies. The CD6 will focus on applying its own technology to the three-dimensional representation of the body by means of multispectral images. This allows the skin to be analysed in great detail. The National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (France) will contribute laser techniques for measuring blood flow. The German company MAVIG will develop commercial confocal microscopy for skin cancer detection. In addition to this in vivo measuring technique, Diagnoptics will establish a platform based on photonic technologies for performing surgery that is minimally invasive. The aim is to make these tools available to healthcare professionals so that they can be tested on real patients. They will also help dermatologists and surgeons to make more accurate, faster and more objective diagnoses.

The technologies that will be used in the Diagnoptics project are well known in the field of photonics, but the UPC's CD6 and companies participating in the project are using them to generate a new application that will help hospital services to act more effectively against skin cancer. The hospitals that are participating in this European initiative are the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona (Spain) and the University Hospital of Mòdena i Reggio Emilia University (Italy). The pilot system is scheduled to become operational in 2016. Its feasibility will be tested on a set of 300 volunteer patients in each of these hospitals.

The CD6 is a research group that belongs to the Innovation and Technology Centre (CIT UPC) and the Catalan government's TECNIO network.