An at-home test for skin cancer is in the development stages at the University of Michigan, according to a group of researchers there.
Researchers at the university's Nagrath Laboratory said they have created a kit that could be developed into an way to detect melanoma at home.
Melanoma is the most deadly, invasive form of skin cancer, existing in moles or normal patches of skin. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it accounts for only about 1% of all skin cancers, but causes the majority of skin cancer deaths. It can spread extremely quickly, Smith said. According to the Cleveland Clinic, melanoma is one of the most common cancers in people under 30, particularly young women. But it is highly curable if caught early.
Scott Smith, a chemical engineering doctoral student and a co-author of the group's recent study, said the group has developed a microneedle that isolates melanoma-specific particles from the fluid between cells. The microneedles used to collect the skin samples are 0.6 millimeters long and less than 0.0001 millimeters wide,he said.
The sample goes on a testing strip, similar to a pregnancy or COVID test. “If there’s two lines, that means it’s positive for melanoma exosomes,” Smith said.
The team has used the tests on mice tissue implanted with a tumor. Smith said the tests were able to detect the melanoma in the animal 100% of the time as compared to their control group. But Smith says there have been a limited amount of experiments done.
Skin cancer is usually detected through a biopsy called dermoscopy, where a spot of skin or mole is removed and examined to see if it contains cancer cells. The process can involve multiple doctor appointments.
Smith said at-home testing could eliminate long wait times between doctors and help prioritize which patients need to be seen first.
“We're hoping eventually this is something that you can just get off the shelf, and test on yourself,” Smith said. The goal is to help patients determine if they should get it checked out or if the patch of skin or mole that is troubling them is something they don’t need to worry about. One treatment for melanoma is surgery, which involves cutting out the cancer and some of the surrounding skin.
“We really wanted to look into something that's translatable, that can be used either at home or in the clinic,” Smith said. “And so we kind of took inspiration from COVID and pregnancy tests to try and use this as a diagnostic platform.”
Smith said he hopes the test will save patients from getting unnecessary surgical procedures, saving resources, time and money. He said the next steps involve testing on human tissue samples that have already been removed from a patient. He said that if these experiments are successful, they will begin testing on actual patients.
