Technology - description

The Advantage

Veriskin has developed Dynamic Epidermal CApillary Measurement (DECAM), a novel and proprietary technology that rapidly and objectively assesses skin vascular networks. DECAM is the world’s first objective, hemodynamic based approach to skin cancer assessment, enabling primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other non dermatologists to quickly and accurately determine whether a mole or skin lesion is likely cancerous.

Today, frontline clinicians lack any objective tool to reliably evaluate suspicious skin lesions. As a result, many benign blemishes are incorrectly flagged as possible cancers—leading to unnecessary specialist referrals and procedures—or, conversely, early stage cancers are mistakenly dismissed as harmless, delaying diagnosis and increasing downstream costs and morbidity.

Veriskin aims to change this by delivering an EU and FDA cleared screening device that empowers frontline providers (and dermatologists) to make faster, more accurate, and more objective decisions in skin cancer assessment. .

The Veriskin Solution

Veriskin’s TruScore device is a proprietary, non invasive, low cost, handheld tool that enables non expert clinicians to rapidly and objectively determine whether a suspicious skin lesion is likely cancerous—reducing unnecessary biopsies and specialist referrals. The patented technology analyzes force induced hemodynamic differences between benign and malignant lesions, providing a fundamentally different diagnostic signal than traditional imaging based approaches.

Competing technologies—such as surface imaging, hyperspectral imaging, elastic or inelastic light scattering, and electrical impedance—have shown only limited clinical benefit because they rely on detection of indirect, surrogate features that correlate poorly with biological behavior. In contrast, TruScore directly detects structural and functional vascular abnormalities associated with pathological angiogenesis, a well established early hallmark of cancer (see below).

By capturing hemodynamic responses with inherently higher diagnostic information content, and combining them with Veriskin’s proprietary AI assisted analysis, TruScore achieves superior accuracy across all clinically significant skin cancer types. The AI algorithm provides both a binary recommendation (monitor vs. further investigate) and a 0–100% malignancy probability score.

Clinical pilot and algorithm training studies conducted across dermatology clinics in CA, OR, FL, NE, GA, and AZ (1,345 biopsy verified lesions from 984 patients) demonstrated >90% sensitivity and >60% specificity in detecting clinically significant skin cancers. TruScore is designed to be used as a decision support tool during routine physical examinations by non-specialist clinicians, including primary care physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners.

Veriskin’s DECAM technology is using non-invasive, optical measurement of force induced cutaneous hemodynamics to detect structural and functional vascular pathologies in malignant lesions.

Pathological Angiogenesis - An Early Hallmark of Cancer

The role of pathological angiogenesis in cancer progression has long been recognized.^1,2,3 The induction of angiogenesis is generally considered essential to ensure the supply of nutrients and oxygen for malignant tissue growth, invasion, and metastasis. In order for a tumor cell to survive it cannot be more than a few hundred micrometers from the nearest blood vessel.⁴ Blood vessel structural abnormalities have been shown to reveal underlying disease very early during the onset of disease; for example it has been reported that after arrival of only 60 to 80 of tumor cells to an in vivo host tissue it starts to exhibit atypical changes in vasculature and that these changes extend beyond tumor margins.⁵

It has been established that skin cancers⁶ have a denser capillary network or larger dimensioned vasculature relative to those present in non-cancerous skin or common nevi.^7,8,9,10 For example, mean vascular counts (MVC) in cutaneous malignant melanoma have been reported to be ~324% higher than in common nevi and ~500% higher than in normal skin.¹¹ Similar increases in MVC were also observed in basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) tumors.⁷ Moreover, a gradual rise in vascularity with tumor progression was observed offering a basis for early detection, for monitoring efficacy of treatment and prognostic value.^12,13 Neovascularization in melanoma has been correlated with poor prognosis, mortality, and elevated rate of relapse.^9,14 Measurements of passive blood perfusion using high-resolution laser Doppler perfusion imaging¹⁵ showed significantly elevated blood flow in primary melanoma tumors as compared to dysplastic melanocytic naevi (2.2x) and normal skin (3.6x); increased blood flow was also observed in BCC tumors.¹⁵

Moreover, many sold tumors have highly elevated interstitial fluid pressure (IFP)^16,17,18 which is attributed to leaky capillaries, increased resistance to interstitial fluid flow, and impaired lymphatic drainage. IFP in combination with lower venular pressure has been implicated in being responsible for the vessel collapse, the flow stasis and reversal in tumor vasculature.¹⁹ Perfusion experiments showed that geometrical flow resistance of tumors is nonlinear function to applied pressure; the flow resistance is significantly higher at lower perfusion pressure and then asymptotically decreases to a constant value at higher pressures;^20,21,22 such non-linear flow dependence in tumors is in contrast to a constant flow resistance of normal tissues and has been attributed to viscoelasticity of tumor vessels and to cellular pressure exerted by the surrounding tumor cells.²⁰

Another relevant aspect of microcirculation is pressure-induced vasodilation (PIV).^23,24,25 Locally applied mechanical pressure induces localized cutaneous vasodilation in the human skin (which may be protecting against pressure-induced vascular dysfunction and lesion formation by delaying the occurrence of local ischemia).²³ In contrast, newly developed tumor vessels typically lack smooth muscle cells ¹⁹ and are less likely to respond to physical or chemical stimuli; i.e. their ability to actively vasodilate is impaired.

DECAM technology leverages these structural and functional vascular differences, using non invasive optical measurement of force induced hemodynamics to identify malignant lesions.

Proprietary Data Analysis Algorithm

Veriskin’s state of the art, time series AI algorithm analyzes force induced hemodynamic profiles to determine the probability of malignancy. Unlike competing technologies that rely on static structural surrogate features from imaging, impedance, or light scattering data, TruScore detects functional vascular abnormalities tied directly to pathological angiogenesis—an early and biologically meaningful cancer signal.

This richer diagnostic information enables high sensitivity and specificity, providing clinicians with accurate, quantitative decision support tool during routine examinations.