Screen Yourself for Skin Cancer at Home With Your Phone's Camera
UMSkinCheck UMSkinCheckTwenty-three naked smartphone pictures later Something like 90 percent of melanomas--the most serious kind of skin cancer--are visible to the naked eye, no MRI, CT scan, or other kind of sophisticated scanning or imaging necessary. So why bother getting screened at a clinic? The University of Michigan has created an iPhone app that allows you to inspect yourself for skin cancer. All you have to do is take 23 nude pictures of yourself with your smartphone. That, of course, is something we've largely been advised not to do, but no bother. UMSkinCheck's creators think they can help trim health care costs by helping users perform a task that really doesn't require a doctor, especially for those who are at low risk for skin cancer and are otherwise asymptomatic. To that end, the app offers a risk-assessment quiz, examples of what a troubling skin feature looks like for comparison, and periodic...