Instruments & Equipment

Researchers Use Imaging Technology to Diagnose Malignant Melanomas without Removing Tissue

Clinical researchers from the Dermatology Clinic of the Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, have identified an innovative method of diagnosing malignant melanotic melanomas that does not require the removal of skin tissue. These researchers worked with LTB Lasertechnik Berlin, a company that makes lasers and laser measuring systems, and presented this alternative method of diagnosing malignant melanotic melanomas using lasers at recent meetings of dermatologists in Buenos Aires and Amsterdam.

Key to this new procedure is the lasers developed at LTB Lasertechnik Berlin. In recent years, the company has demonstrated how lasers make melanin light up (or fluoresce). By illuminating melanin, researchers identified changes at the cellular level and found that the fluorescence of healthy tissue differs from that of malignant melanotic melanoma.

The ability to diagnose malignant melanomas in situ (without removing tissue via a standard biopsy) by using lasers in this way has revolutionary potential. That's because data show that 90% of biopsies for malignant melanomas are negative.  If using lasers to identify malignancies is successful in the next phase of testing, it could trigger a significant change in how dermatologists and dermatopathologists assess malignancies. Studies show the incidence of malignant melanoma of the skin, the most serious form of skin cancer, is increasing faster than that of any other cancer in the United States.

For a long time, researchers have known about melanin. But, existing methods of lighting up melanin generated such a weak glow that the much more intense fluorescence of other skin fluorophores eclipsed that of the melanin. About two years ago, the researchers lengthened the laser pulse, allowing them to suppress the disruptive fluorescence sufficiently to identify cellular changes in the melanin fluoresce. This new technique allowed the researchers to see and analyze the melanin.

LTB Lasertechnik Berlin, in a press release, noted that clinical tests over the last few months have proven successful when the researchers have used the technique on suspicious skin tissue. "We lengthened the laser pulse," explained Dr. Matthias Scholz, Managing Director of LTB Lasertechnik Berlin in Berlin-Adlershof, Germany. "Nanosecond pulses suppress the disruptive fluorescence to a great extent."

In recent months, the company has clinically tested a prototype instrument for melanoma diagnostics (called LIMES 16-P). More than 100 suspect tissue samples were diagnosed immediately after the biopsy. The result "no suspect" was confirmed in every instance by histological diagnostics. All "suspect" malignant melanomas were correctly diagnosed (including melanoma in situ), the company said.

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