STORY BY

Meredith Raine

At age 29, Suzanna Vaught-Martin decided it was time to roll up her sleeves and be more vigilant about monitoring suspicious-looking moles that cover her arms and other parts of her body.

She already was doing routine spot checks and having atypical moles removed. However, with the hundreds of moles that grace her fair skin and her significant family history of basal and squamous cell carcinomas, Vaught-Martin felt that wasn’t enough.

Dr. Adelaide Hebert, professor and vice chairman of dermatology at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, says when multiple atypical moles are involved, it can be a daunting task for both patient and doctor to detect subtle changes.

“Take a picture—it’ll last longer”

MoleMax II, one of only three digital imaging systems in Texas, located at UT Medical School at Houston, helps to document more accurately those suspicious moles and skin lesions. The machine’s microscope is housed in a trigger-like device that Hebert points directly at a mole or skin spot. It illuminates the mole, magnifies the image 30 times, takes a picture, maps the position of the mole on the patient’s body, and then saves the image to a computer disk.

The disk can be used for yearly comparisons to see whether the mole is growing or changing. Patients can give the disk to their regular physician to use as a baseline for comparison or return to the UT-Houston dermatology clinic annually for follow-up examinations.

“When people have a lot of moles, it’s impossible for their doctor to really remember where every mole is and whether it has changed,” Hebert says. MoleMax can display side-by-side comparisons of the moles on a split computer screen, eliminating doubt, or having to rely on chart notes or patient observation.

“With the MoleMax, you literally measure the size of the mole with the computer, so you know categorically whether it’s bigger or smaller,” she says.

Larger than life

The magnification provides greater clarity of the features of the mole, and in some cases, can eliminate the need for a biopsy.

“We can visualize the mole more accurately,” Hebert said. “It can prevent us from removing moles that are normal but may look atypical to the naked eye or hand-held magnification.” Hebert recommends the mole-mapping procedure to patients who have moles on areas of their body that they can’t easily monitor, a family history of skin cancer or multiple, atypical moles.

Modern day treasure map

The mapping is painless and takes about an hour for each 50 moles that are charted. Ultimately, UT-Houston’s mole mapping technology can save lives, Hebert says. The death rate from melanoma has risen about two percent annually since 1960, and the American Cancer Society estimates there will be 47,700 new cases of melanoma in the United States this year. Early detection is the key to curing almost all skin cancers, Hebert says, yet an estimated 7,700 with die.

Vaught-Martin says MoleMax II also provides peace of mind. “People usually don’t think about their risk of skin cancer until they are in their 50s, and that may be too late,” she said. “It’s important to start a routine of identifying moles and the changes they go through early on. Having technology that helps you keep a close eye on those changes is great.

Last Updated: 6-09-2003

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