Room: 321, Bldg: Duff Medical Building, 3775 Rue University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/543954

[]To address the issue of limited accessibility to expert skin screening by skin specialists and alleviate the strain on the public healthcare system due to unnecessary invasive procedures, such as biopsies, we propose the development of a low-cost and hand-held probe device to accurately identify skin cancer non-invasively. The proposed device will reduce the pressure on the overall public health care system whilst specifically aiding underserved rural communities by providing an easy-to-use alternative for accurate skin cancer <a href="http://screening.To" target="_blank" title="screening.To">screening.To design the hand-held probe, the dielectric characteristics of healthy, benign and malignant (cancerous) skin tissue have to be known. Previous literature has reported properties for healthy skin and several benign and malignant pathologies (squamous and basal cell carcinoma; two types of skin cancer), but the dielectric properties of melanoma (another type of skin cancer) have only been reported below 8.5 GHz. Initial tests that our collaboration conducted show promising results for a significant contrast in dielectric properties of healthy skin and melanoma that would support the effort to develop a skin cancer <a href="http://probe.The" target="_blank" title="probe.The">probe.The first resonator for the hand-held low-cost prototype was designed in a simulation software that is specialized to study interactions of electromagnetic waves and biological tissues, such as healthy and cancerous skin. In parallel, we developed a laboratory model that can mimic the properties of healthy and diseased skin tissues. The developed probe has been validated on the laboratory model of <a href="http://skin.The" target="_blank" title="skin.The">skin.The goal of this research is to provide an easy-to-use, hand-held, low-cost device to allow for skin cancer screening in GP clinics in cities and rural communities. The innovation will allow for early detection and increased patient outcomes while relieving pressure on the public health system, by raising the accuracy of correct identification of skin cancer of a GP to that of a highly specialised <a href="http://dermatologist.Speaker(s):" target="_blank" title="dermatologist.Speaker(s):">dermatologist.Speaker(s): Lena, Room: 321, Bldg: Duff Medical Building, 3775 Rue University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/543954