text_1: Researchers develop automated melanoma detector for skin cancer screening
text_2: This news release reports on a study of a computerized technology that combines imaging with digital analysis to help improve the screening of melanoma skin lesions. The news release explains the specificity and sensitivity of the test. It also clearly discloses who funded the research. One downside is that it’s not until the final paragraph that we learn this is still experimental research that must be confirmed in larger studies. Earlier statements make it sound farther along, e.g., “researchers at The Rockefeller University have developed an automated technology that combines imaging with digital analysis and machine learning to help physicians detect melanoma at its early stages.” A larger concern is how the release downplayed the high-false positive rate of 64%, saying this “approaches” the false-positive rate of manual detection by expert dermatologist, which studies put at about 32%. Melanoma can be very difficult to diagnose so if doctors could use a tool that helped better screen suspicious-looking moles, they might be able to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and save lives. This new approach thus far has shown promise, but further research will be needed to validate it as an enhanced diagnostic tool–and that should be made upfront and clear to the journalists and consumers who read the news release.