CORDIS

Skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer. Its early diagnosis is essential since it can be treated more effectively when detected earlier. Visual inspection followed by histological examination is, still today, the gold standard for clinicians. However, a large number of unnecessary surgical procedures are still performed.
New diagnostics aids are emerging including the recent techniques of optical coherence tomography (OCT) which permits non-invasive 3D optical biopsies of skin, improving patient’s quality of life. Nevertheless, the existing bulk systems are expensive, only affordable at the Hospital and thus, not sufficiently used by physicians or dermatologists as an early diagnosis tool.
The goal of VIAMOS is to benefit from advanced MOEMS technologies, enabling a new generation of miniature instruments. The challenge is to provide handheld, low-cost, fully parallel spectral domain miniature OCT devices (10x cheaper, 150x smaller), adapted for early diagnosis of cutaneous pathologies. VIAMOS will lean on the experience and results fostered from a previous European collaborative project, diffusing the technology to medical diagnostic applications. The consequence will be a significant upgrade adding new features such as heterodyne detection and integrated swept source.
Thanks to its ability to deliver high-resolution 3D topography of skin with multifunctional modules (e.g. polarization sensitive cartography), VIAMOS will propose an OCT microsystem able to revolutionize the field of microscopes for dermatology imaging.
To match these objectives, VIAMOS brings together an experienced consortium made of 2 academic institutions (Université de Franche-Comté, University of Stuttgart), 3 research institutes (VTT of Finland, Fraunhofer Institute ENAS, CSEM) and 2 industrials (DermoScan GmbH, Statice SAS), covering MEMS & MOEMS, photonics & OCT, microscopy, system integration and dermatology. A unique team of transverse expertise is gathered in VIAMOS to design and demonstrate a miniature solution for in vivo 3D skin imaging to further address the early diagnosis of cutaneous pathologies that will potentially benefit millions of people worldwide.