A fine-tuned microscopy technique offers breakthrough imaging of melanoma

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, with over 232,000 new cases and 55,000 deaths per year worldwide. Those with light-skin or red hair are often prone to hard-to-detect melanomas, often caused by properties of pigments within skin called melanins. People with fair skin have a higher concentration of the melanin known as pheomelanin in their skin, and a corresponding higher probability of developing melanoma—in particular, a difficult-to-detect subtype known as amelanotic melanoma. In high concentrations, pheomelanin is responsible for the orange-reddishness in hair, but is essentially invisible in skin.