Did you know that sudden appearance of black moles, white spots, boils, rash or ringworm on your body might be a warning sign of a severe skin disease? The Instrument Technology Research Center (ITRC) of the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) has teamed up with Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University to develop a "portable epithelial tissue imager," which is able to easily, quickly, and precisely detect whether a patient has skin cancer, enabling that person to be aware of the division and receive treatment at an early stage.

An all-in-one portable epithelial tissue imager (right) developed by ITRC and Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, and a camera-type clinical epithelial tissue imager.

Furthermore, this instrument can also accurately pinpoint the cancer's location prior to photodynamic therapy, allowing the lesion to be fully removed during treatment. Developed independently in Taiwan, this instrument combines medical and optoelectronic technologies. It has already received medical device certification from the Department of Health, and has joined the medical devices developed successfully by the people of Taiwan.

After three years of collaboration, ITRC and Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University successfully developed an epithelial tissue imager, which has already been used effectively to skin cancer.

Professor Chung-Shing Chang of the Department of Dermatology at Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University stated: "A seventy-year-old lady by the name of Huang came to see us at the Department of Dermatology for scratches on her face due to itchiness. She was diagnosed with actinic keratosis, which is a precursor to skin cancer. With the appearance of coarse keratin deposits and dilated blood vessels on the face, patients often mistake this disease for common age spots, and generally do not go to see a doctor until they can't endure the itchiness, or when the affected area is bleeding. Due to the fact that the disease spreads out all over the face, traditional surgical treatment can't entirely remove the spots, and will result in scars. The patient thus agreed to receive photodynamic therapy. We first used the epithelial tissue imager's fluorescence imaging system to locate the problem after some ointment had been applied to her face for three hours. The areas that fluoresced red indicated the presence skin cancer. We next utilized photodynamic therapy and exposed the affected areas to red light. The patient saw a great impROVement in her redness and itchiness after the first session of therapy. All the symptoms of actinic keratosis disappeared after the patient had a second therapy session one month later. Her skin returned to normal and there were no scars on her face." This instrument has an accuracy of as high as 95% when used to diagnose and locate skin cancer.

Our skin is the organ with the largest surface area, and is also a leading indicator of our health. The fluorescence diagnostic system jointly developed by Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University and ITRC to detect skin diseases combines an instrument developed by NARLabs with photodynamic therapy, and is already successfully being used to diagnose and treat skin cancer.

Apart from continuing to impROVe core technologies, ITRC has teamed up with Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, to implement the "High-level Biotech Personnel Training and Employment Plan," which pROVides training to at least six post-doctoral researchers every year. These researchers are conducting photodynamic therapy instrument R&D, and hope to extend this technology to the detection and treatment of oral cancer, digestive tract cancer, urinary tract cancer, cervical cancer, and cancers of epithelial-type organs, opening up a new era in cancer diagnosis and treatment.