Medical
Scanning technology from industry has a new use: looking into human skin to catch signs of cancer early By Neil Wilks
Armed with the evidence: Scanner machine helps identify skin problems (above)
Sira Technology, the formerUK government-owned Scientific Instrument Research Association,Holmes saw the potential of the biomedical sector and built up a department dedicated to the sector in the early 2000s.When Sira went into administration in 2006,Holmes and four colleagues secured the IP rights to their ongoing work and went it alone, setting up MichelsonDiagnostics that year. Their refinement of OCT was focused on
Skin deep T
he study of skin by dermatologists has traditionally lacked one tool: an effective way of looking into skin. Even the best dermatologist has to rely on what they can touch
and see on the surface only. If they want to know anythingmore about what’s going on beneath the top layer, the skin has to be cut. While thismay only be a small incision
that individuallymeans little, on a larger scale – in the diagnoses of the 3.5million new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer in theUS every year, for example – being able to clearly see inside skin would save a significant amount of time andmoney. A firmin Orpington, Kent has developed
a scanner to do just this. CalledMichelson Diagnostics, itsmain product is the VivoSight Scanner which uses infra-red laser light to look into skin to a depth of 1mm. The resulting images are of extremely high resolution and should be good for aiding diagnosis of, and guiding treatment of, skin cancer. “It uses imaging technology that some
people describe as analogous to ultrasound, but using light rather than sound,” says MichelsonDiagnostics chief executive officer, and one of its co-founders, Jon Holmes. “The resulting images look a little like ultrasound but because we’re using laser beams we get amuch higher resolution image. It’s an order ofmagnitude
24 ◆ Environmental Engineering ◆ February 2011
better than ultrasound and two orders higher thanMRI scans,” saysHolmes. Patients are simply examined using a
handheld scanner which provides visualisation andmeasurement of details too small for ultrasound to pick up but which are too deep for conventional microscopy. This could speed up the initial skin cancer treatment by removing the need for that initial biopsy. The technology within the VivoSight and
its sister product, amicroscope using the same principles, is called OCT: Optical Coherence Tomography. Invented at theUS universityMIT in the early 1990s, OCT has an interferometer, which is a highly sensitive optical device, at its heart. When light enters skin it gets scattered by
all the tissue cells and, while some is reflected, the scattering destroys any imaging properties. “What the interferometer does is detect the tiny amount of light that is reflected fromtissue structures without being scattered. It filters out all of the useless scattered light, a bit like seeing through fog,” saysHolmes. OCT has subsequently been
commercialised for retina scanning. “There are tens of thousands of these eye scanner machines using OCT, but until now OCT imaging has not been applied commercially to other clinical applications,” saysHolmes. While working in industrial scanning at
improving its image quality for usage on skin which led themtomulti-beamOCT. “We have four beams, all focused at different depths in the tissue which produces a composite image of far better quality,” saysHolmes. Backed by investment groups and
venture capitalists to the tune of £4.5 million since 2006, the company has been building up business by persuading clinicians of the benefits ofmulti-beam OCT to secure volume sales. An early step was releasing the
microscope in 2007. “That was a good way to demonstrate image quality,” saysHolmes who adds that some of these are now being used in analysis of fruit fly hearts for genetics research into human heart disease. “The whole fly is only 1mmacross so you can see prettymuch all of it,” he says. In summer 2007, having gained the CE
mark formedical use in Europe, the VivoSight scanner, intended for skin imaging, was launched byMichelson Diagnostics. It gainedUS Food andDrug Administration approval in early 2010, opening up a hugemarket for the company. And by January 2011, continuing a trend
of doubling the size of its premises every 18 months since 2006,Michelson took over more space to accommodate its growing manufacturing and R&Doperations. The trick now is to build up approval
among topmedical professionals and opinion formers. Consequently,Michelson has targeted the big research institutions, including Guy’sHospital in London which is now home to two units. The aimis to get to the point where it’s
seen as standard practice. “We have to get people using it, not just in trials, but in regular use. If we can validate that, and show the benefits of using it are consistent and repeatable, the business will balloon. And our plan is to do exactly that by the end of this year,” saysHolmes. ■
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