You’ll find a roll in every household. Tape has a long list of useful jobs, and now doctors are adding one more to its list. Researchers believe the sticky adhesive could help diagnose skin cancer, specifically melanoma.
According to the American Cancer Society’s website more than 6,800 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each year, and about 8,700 people die from it. This kind of cancer, which is typically caused by sun exposure, usually manifests itself in the shape of moles or discolored spots on a person’s skin.
If melanoma is caught early it is one of the most treatment cancers that exists, but testing for cancer is a bit of a process. When a patient seeks a doctor’s help for a peculiar looking growth, they usually have to cut it to take skin samples. It’s a painful procedure that involves a shot to numb the area, and a scalpel to cut a piece of the skin away. The samples are then sent off to a lab to be tested, but a new variety of medical tape could end this painful lancing.
If the tape is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, a doctor would stick a piece of tape on the questionable area, pull it off, and send that to the lab rather than a piece of skin. The tape, which comes out of a dispenser similar to those used for scrapbooking, collects a skin cells. If the test comes back positive a biopsy would still have to be done to determine the severity of the cancer, but if the test comes back negative, no cutting is needed.
A study using this tape was published in the British Journal of Dermatology which found the tape to be 100 percent accurate in determining cancer.
Doctors hope the less invasive test will encourage more patients to get help sooner if they have any health concerns about their skin.
