AI skin cancer detection app claims 99.8 percent accuracy rate in ruling out cancer

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British tech company, Skin Analytics has received regulatory approval for DERM—its autonomous AI skin cancer detection system that uses a smartphone. Dermatologists are in short supply, with an average of only 30 dermatologists per one million population in Europe. Skin cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer if it's caught early but in the UK alone, NHS England says urgent skin cancer referrals have skyrocketed 170 percent in the last decade, and 11 percent of urgent cases wait over a month just to be seen. The simple app operates on most smartphones and with a lens attachment called a dermascope. It allows a technician to photograph a patient's lesion and receive an almost instantaneous diagnosis. The AI technology compares a single photograph of the lesion with a library of images before giving a diagnosis. Skin Analytics says DERM achieves a 99.8 percent accuracy rate in ruling out cancer. DERM was awarded the EU's Class III CE marked medical device under the European Medical Device Regulation, making it the world's first legally authorized autonomous AI for detecting cancer. It has already been deployed at 21 NHS (National Health Service) sites in the UK, racking up 135,000 patients assessed. More impressively still, it has helped to detect more than 13,000 cancers, according to Skin Analytics. "When you think about health care, it’s a very human discipline. And at the end of the day, diagnostics is just one small part of the process. So by using technologies like DERM to be able to assess more patients, find the right patients to get into the dermatologist, we can really drive up the efficiency of our health care system and be able to see more patients faster and get them better outcomes," says Neil Daly, founder and CEO of Skin Analytics. DERM can automatically discharge up to 40 percent of urgent skin cancer referrals. It could become an important tool for early diagnosis of cancer and potentially save many lives. This article was provided by The Associated Press.