A patch with microneedles will allow you to detect skin cancer at home

Soon, you will be able to check whether a suspicious mole is dangerous at home without the help of doctors. In the US, a patch has been introduced that has been tested on mice and successfully distinguished melanoma from benign skin growths.

More and more technologies are emerging that allow people to monitor their health without having to go to the hospital. For example, an electronic tattoo can predict mental fatigue, and a “smart” patch can not only assess a patient’s well-being, but also deliver the necessary amount of medication to their body.

Specialists from the University of Michigan in the US have created a home test for melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. The technology was described in the scientific journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that develops from melanocytes, the cells that produce pigment. These cells give each person’s skin its unique color. Most melanomas occur on skin exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, although they can also develop in other parts of the body that contain melanocytes, including the eyes and areas protected from the sun, such as mucous membranes, palms, soles, and under the nails.

A unique difference between melanoma and other types of skin cancer is its ability to spread quickly and widely to other parts of the body (metastasize).

For this reason, melanoma is the most dangerous of all skin cancers.

The development is a silicone patch with star-shaped microneedles. These needles are 0.6 millimeters long and less than 0.01 millimeters wide. Their tips are coated with a gel that “fishes out” so-called exosomes from the fluid between the cells of the epidermis — tiny bubbles that are secreted by almost all cells in the body.

“The star-shaped needles make the puncture easier and less painful, but they are so small that they only pass through the uppermost layer of skin, the epidermis, and do not cause bleeding,” the authors of the study explained.

It was previously believed that exosomes help the body “clean up trash,” that is, remove cellular waste. However, these vesicles contain fragments of DNA and RNA that cells use to communicate with each other. It turns out that cancer cell exosomes can contribute to the spread of tumors, and if such exosomes are detected, cancer can be identified earlier than is possible with biopsy and blood tests.

The gel that covers the new patch attracts exosomes to the surface of the microneedles. After that, the patch must be removed from the skin and immersed in a special acid: both the gel and the exosomes will turn into a solution. Next, a test strip must be immersed in the resulting sample: if the liquid contains melanoma exosomes, two lines will appear on the strip; otherwise, only one line will appear. A home test for COVID-19 works in a similar way.

The authors of the development tested it on the skin of pigs and mice. In both cases, the patch demonstrated its effectiveness.

Next, a pilot study in humans and a series of clinical trials are planned. If they are successful, the researchers hope to make the patch available for purchase. In addition, the gel coating may be further refined in the future to detect exosomes that are released in other types of cancer: malignant tumors of the lungs, breast, colon, prostate, and brain.

Helios Krefeld clinic Germany,Krefeld (Dusseldorf) 4.00 (1 review)Leave a request

Korona Medical Center Ukraine,LvivLeave a request

Medikom Сlinic Leave a request

Published: 31.07.2025

Updated: 31.07.2025

Medical author, Medical editor:

Stepan Yuk

Medical expert:

PhD. Olexandr Voznyak