SFU alumna developing app to diagnose skin cancer
Diagnosing skin cancer? There may soon be an app for that.
Maryam Sadeghi, an SFU Computing Science alumna, is working to develop an app to help in early diagnosis of malignant melanoma. The hardware and software Sadeghi is developing can be used on smartphones to photograph a mole, and analyze it for any visual symptoms pointing towards skin cancer. The app then recommends if further medical attention is required.
In order to better understand the visual indicators found with malignant melanoma, Sadeghi has spent the past 4 years working with UBC dermatologists, along with the BC Cancer Agency. The visual symptoms of melanoma discovered were then applied in combination with computer algorithms and visual imaging technologies in order to potentially diagnosis skin cancer. Skin cancer is 90 per cent curable with early diagnosis.
According to the BC Cancer Agency, melanoma is “the most aggressive and dangerous of all skin cancers.” The affordable app will allow consumers to photograph and evaluate their moles for symptoms of melanoma, and assist in early diagnosis of the disease. Risk factors for this disease include exposure to UV lights, and it is most common among fair-skinned people who have many freckles or moles.
Sadeghi and her friends have also already launched two smartphone apps hosted by the Save Your Skin Foundation. These apps give daily warnings regarding UV exposure across Canada and the US. “UV Canada” and “UV U.S.” have been downloaded 35,000 times since 2011.
Sadeghi explains that she was motivated to create an educational app for skin cancer prevention after she received the CIHR Skin Research Training Scholarship, which allowed her to work closely with dermatologists and receive feedback towards her research.
Sadeghi’s research and thesis landed her the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s Innovation Challenge Award in 2012, as well as a Doctoral Dissertation honorable mention from the Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society (CIPPRS).
“We are now working on new products to empower patients with a professional tool for skin cancer self-screening,” said Sadeghi. The products are still under development, and are expected to launch by January 2014.
Study links food insecurity to death in HIV-treated drug users
A new study involving SFU, published in science journal PLOS One, looked at the relationship between food insecurity and survival among HIV-positive injection drug users who are receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Food insecurity is defined as insufficient quantity and quality of food. The study found that drug users who were food insecure when first starting ART were twice as likely to die as their food secure counterparts.
“[This] study specifically aimed to explore whether food insecurity potentially influenced increased risk of mortality among injection drug users across BC,” said Aranka Anema, first author on the study and BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) epidemiologist.
The study followed 254 HIV-positive injection drug users receiving life-prolonging highly active ART across BC. After 13.3 years of follow-ups, they discovered that those individuals who reported being food insecure in the beginning of the study were nearly twice as likely to die than those who were food secure.
“We found that food insecurity, and not hunger, was significantly associated with all-cause mortality,” Anema explained, “suggesting that other aspects of food insecurity — such as poor dietary diversity and / or anxiety regarding food access — may be driving this association.”
Senior author of the study, Robert Hogg, an SFU health sciences professor and director of the HIV/AIDS Drug Treatment Program at the BC-CfE, says this is the first study to observe the impact of food insecurity on the survival of HIV-positive injection drug users.
Although life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy has helped to decrease HIV-related mortality, the findings of this study suggest food insecurity has a great impact on mortality and HIV-related illnesses.
“Our results suggest that addressing food insecurity, in addition to other known social and structural barriers to HIV-related health among illicit drug users, such as incarceration, homelessness, and gender-related factors, is [of] paramount public health importance,” Anema concluded.
Anema suggested that, although further research is necessary to understand the means through which food insecurity drives this association, “public health organizations should prospectively evaluate the possible role of food supplementation and socio-structural supports on survival among IDU within HIV treatment programs.”
