Snapping Selfies to Screen for Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst prognoses amongst all forms of cancer — with a five-year survival rate of just 9 percent — in part because early signs of the disease often go undetected. Now, researchers have developed a smartphone app that could allow people to easily screen themselves for pancreatic cancer, hepatitis, and other diseases, simply by snapping a selfie. One of the earliest symptoms of pancreatic cancer and some other diseases is jaundice, a yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes due to the buildup of bilirubin in the blood. The new app, called BiliScreen, uses a smartphone camera, computer vision algorithms, and machine learning tools to detect milder forms of jaundice in the eye before humans can see them.Read more at Bioengineering Today: Snapping Selfies to Screen for Pancreatic Cancer.