Skin cancer is a big problem that is getting worse. Decades of insufficient sun protection are now catching up with an ageing population. While obvious non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC) can sometimes be dealt with using surgery, widespread field cancerisation where a patient has multiple lesions on say the scalp or face is far more challenging. A holistic approach to assessing and treating the area of field cancerisation is urgently required to cope with the coming “avalanche” of patients.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was highlighted as an increasingly important technology to help Dermatologists diagnose and monitor the treatment of NMSC at the recent International Society for Biophysics and Imaging of the Skin (ISBS) annual meeting held in Copenhagen.

During the congress there were fourteen presentations on how Michelson Diagnostics’ VivoSight® OCT scanner can help doctors treat various skin conditions, including NMSC.

Three talks in particular outlined how VivoSight can support the use of non-surgical treatments, for example by allowing the detection of residual lesions post treatment, or by highlighting recurrence that was not visible with the naked eye1-3. Examples were also presented showing how VivoSight can add information on lesion depth 4.