Melanoma Diagnostics

Melanoma Diagnostics, Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company whose proprietary, patent-pending technology from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) is unique for evaluating malignant melanoma (skin cancer). This novel technology includes a number of highly validated genetic markers, allowing it to discriminate between normal and melanoma (cancer) cells. The markers developed by Melanoma Diagnostics allow pathologists to discriminate between benign moles and melanoma, and to better characterize the risk of disease progression or metastasis.

Melanoma, a cancer of pigment-producing cells called melanocytes, most commonly occurs on the skin. Melanoma is caused by a combination of genetic predisposition and external factors such as ultraviolet exposure. Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in males in the United States, and is the fastest growing cancer in terms of incidence. Each year in the US, 2.5-3 million moles are evaluated by biopsy, and of those over 100,000 are diagnosed as melanoma. All of these tumors biopsied for a potential diagnosis of melanoma can be evaluated significantly more accurately by our proprietary markers.