Melanoma screening in Gozo Posted Saturday, October 9, 2004 by arjuna
The Malta Independent Online - News

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Web posted at 7:00 am CET October 9, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

The study of incidence of melanoma in Gozo, which was announced earlier this year, began last Saturday with the residents of San Lawrenz. The study is the first of its kind worldwide, as it screens a whole population, aged 16 and over, for melanoma incidence.

Melanoma is a deadly cancer of the skin with an incidence of 12-15 cases per 100,000 people. Considering that advanced cutaneous melanoma is still incurable, and it is increasing in many

countries, early detection is an important step towards a reduction in mortality.

Diagnosis in Gozo is carried out through a computerised system using imaging and completely non-invasive techniques.

In 1987, Italians Prof. Marco Burroni and Dottoressa Dell'Eva launched an innovative system for the early diagnosis of malignant melanoma, based on visual accuracy and artificial intelligence. DBDermo-Mips is based on a computer-linked dermatoscope that enables assessment of certain characteristics of pigmented lesions that are not visible to the naked eye, thus providing a valuable ancillary diagnostic aid to the dermatologist. Prof Lucio Andreassi, together with his team in Siena, perfected the discipline of digital epilumeniscence utilising this modern technology. Today, DBDermo-Mips is able to offer diagnostic results in seconds, with an accuracy of well over 90 per cent, resulting in earlier diagnosis which may mean the difference between cure and certain death.

The system is able to automatically analyse the spot under evaluation in real time and compare the values with a huge database of 145,000 digitalised images of all variants of melanoma, at a rate of 15 lesions per second. In this way the clinician focuses on the lesion and the system automatically gives its probability of malignancy by a beeping sound on a hand-held computer.

Gozo residents are being contacted by their respective local councils. The first group of residents that launched the project were those from San Lawrenz. It is planned that residents from the smaller villages will be checked first, gradually covering the entire population of the island in a three-year period.
The screening programme is being carried out by the Maltese Association of Dermatology and Venereology and the Gozo General Hospital (Ministry for Gozo).