In a video, 30-year-old Stacey Everson tells the story of how she picked up her phone, snapped a selfie, and saved her own life. She might have easily overlooked the small, irregular mole on her upper left arm. But prompted by friends and family, she took a picture of the growth with an app named SkinVision, and followed up on the app's recommendation that she see a doctor, urgently. The doctor removed and tested the growth. "A week later, it came back positive for early-stage melanoma," she says.

Early detection of skin cancer could be the difference between a simple mole removal or several rounds of chemotherapy. While skin care advice most commonly comes about at the brink of summer, your skin can get damaged by UV rays no matter what time of year, no matter what the weather. Skin cancer accounts for more diagnoses each year than all other cancers, but the good news is that early detection could be the difference between a simple mole removal or malignant cancer that spreads to other parts of the body. A handful of smartphone apps and devices claim to aid early detection and keep you on track with regular self-exams. You can capture photos of suspicious moles or marks and track them yourself, or send them off to a dermatologist for assessment.

SkinVision is on a mission to save 250,000 lives in the next decade through early detection of skin cancer using machine learning. Digital Health's Owen Hughes caught up with SkinVision CEO, Erik de Heus, at the Intelligent Health conference in Basel last month to find out more. A key facet of preventative health initiatives is mobilising health around individuals in a way that allows them to become more proactive in their wellbeing. Giving patients the power to do this using technology they already possess can therefore play a huge role in helping people stay aware of their health and acting before an issue turns into something more serious. SkinVision embraces this idea by turning the smartphone into a tool for the early detection and monitoring of skin cancer.

SkinVision app claims to detect the most common forms of skin cancer. It is an Android and iOS app that allows the user to assess and track changes in the skin spots over time. The user has to submit a photo of their skin using their smartphone camera. After analyzing the image with Artificial Intelligence algorithm, the app delivers the risk assessment. There are three levels of risk described by the app: low, low with symptoms or high.

Mobile apps which claim to detect skin cancer could be endangering the public because they are not regulated, scientists claim. The apps do not notice all'red flag' symptoms of skin cancer, according to researchers, and are not a replacement for going to see a doctor. People should also take the apps' recommendations with a pinch of salt, experts say, and always go to a doctor if they suspect something is wrong. Researchers worry the technology is not tested thoroughly to make sure they work, may not have expert advice when they are being made, and the software which identifies problems might be flawed. Some apps have a fairly high success rate and correctly identify 88 per cent of skin cancer cases, according to the study.

Entopsis: Entopsis is a Miami based startup building a device NuTec (Nanoscale Unbiased Textured Capture) utilizing artificial intelligence. NuTec is mainly focussed on cancer, autoimmune diseases. SkinVision: SkinVision is a skin cancer awareness and tracking app that allows you to understand your risk factors for skin cancer and keep track of your moles. CureMetrix: CureMetrix is developing a next-generation based medical image analysis tool for mammography. OncoraMedical: Oncora Medical is focussed on using machine learning and big data in radiation oncology. This clinical decision support software will provide aid to oncologists based on the results of sophisticated data analytics.

Engineers participating in a hackathon last weekend demonstrated an artificial intelligence that they say could someday detect cancerous moles, TechCrunch reports. Although the program is currently in its infancy, the team hopes that enough user submissions could allow Doctor Hazel to predict skin cancer with at least 90 percent accuracy. After one day and thousands of image downloads, the AI is identifying cancer at an 85 percent success rate, the team said during a presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt's San Francisco 2017 hackathon. However, the team has launched a beta and is inviting users to submit their own photos to improve Doctor Hazel's performance. "There's a huge problem in getting AI data for medicine … no one wants to share," Mike Borozdin, developer of Doctor Hazel, told TechCrunch.