Call for clinicians to trial melanoma screening test

British medical technology company, Moletest (Scotland) is calling for clinicians and service managers to consider assessing nomela, a professional rule-out screening test for melanoma.

The technology uses image analysis software delivered via a dedicated iPad. Moletest Scotland aims to assess the clinical and technical usability of nomela in the real-world setting.

Clinicians and service managers in the community will now have the opportunity to be the first to try out this skin cancer screening technology whilst playing a role in shaping its usability in practice. While ongoing clinical trials in secondary care aim to confirm accuracy in ruling out melanoma, practical insight on the device gathered from the usability assessment will provide evidence on nomela’s acceptability in a real-world setting and highlight any developments that can be made to further address unmet needs.

Healthcare professionals taking part in the usability assessment will be trained to take images of skin lesions or moles suspected of melanoma using a dedicated nomela iPad. The images are then analysed against five algorithms to provide an instant result, either "No evidence of melanoma" or "Melanoma not excluded”. The test results can be viewed by clinicians and compared with their own analysis but are not expected to influence the clinical decision. For every test completed, practices will receive financial remuneration for their expert insight.

Bruce Murray, technical director at Moletest (Scotland) said: “This usability assessment is an invaluable opportunity for clinicians to get priority access to our technology. Many healthcare professionals indicate that they don’t receive sufficient training and don’t feel suitably equipped to recognise skin cancer with confidence. The nomela technology is specifically designed to support healthcare professionals when screening for melanoma and can offer immediate reassurance to patients. In a time when health screening is more important than ever, now is the time to influence the future of advanced technology for cancer screening.”

In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, 59% of people who noticed changes to the appearance of a mole did not contact their GP causing a growing backlog of undiagnosed patients. The nomela technology fills an unmet need by reducing the workload of both primary and secondary care professionals with substantially fewer unnecessary referrals to specialists and less time wasted by GPs following up for results.