March 13, 2007 - Lucid, Inc., a medical device and information company that develops cellular imaging technology, has received a $1.9 million, 3-year grant from the National Institute of Health�s (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct a clinical study to evaluate the efficacy of its VivaScope in-vivo confocal microscopy technology for the diagnosis of pigmented lesions, which could contribute to the development of a non-invasive early detection method for melanoma.
The study will employ the VivaScope confocal microscopy, a non-invasive imager of skin in-vivo with cellular resolution, which would potentially reduce the need to excise tissue. The study will involve approximately 600 patients presenting a suspicious pigmented lesion on clinical examination. The aim of the clinical investigators is to produce an extensive atlas of confocal images and a glossary of terms for the description of confocal images of pigmented lesions.
Research is being conducted at five sites including: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's facilities in New York City and Long Island; the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York; and the Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California.