MoleMapper™ Mole Tracking App
MoleMapper™ is a cellphone app available in Apple®’s App Store. Part of the ResearchKit suite of apps, MoleMapper™ will help to gather data for melanoma research and, potentially, impact health outcomes in individuals at risk for melanoma. Using your phone camera, MoleMapper™ tracks moles and how they change and grow over time. Rapid change or growth may indicate malignancy. MoleMapper™ also reminds you to re-check your moles regularly. By sharing mole images over time, researchers can develop new ways of evaluating moles and may (at some point in the future) be able to tell whether you need to see a doctor or have a mole removed based upon a cell phone picture.
MoleMapper™ was developed by a Ph.D. cancer biologist, Dan Webster, to help his wife (who is at high risk of melanoma) monitor her moles between visits with her dermatologist. This app allows users to photograph and map moles to zones on the body, and monitor changes in the size of the moles relative to a reference object (like a coin), over time. App users can maintain these images exclusively on their phone app to share with their medical team. Or, after a consent process on the app, they can transmit the data from images and periodic surveys to researchers for analysis.
For more information, visit the MoleMapper™ website.
NOTE: Mole Mapper is NOT designed to provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, or treatment. Currently, there is not enough data to develop an app that can diagnose melanoma, but if enough data is collected through Mole Mapper and shared with researchers, it may be possible in the future. Mole Mapper should not be used in place of consultation with a physician or health care provider at this time. It is a tracking tool for monitoring moles yourself, for sharing with your physician, and is a means to engage in research.
How is this related to the War on Melanoma™?
This new app is another mechanism to broadly engage people across the U.S. in the War on Melanoma™ and collect data to find answers. It empowers you to learn what is normal for your body, monitor any changes, and share those photos with your medical team. Additionally, if you provide permission (consent), you can securely transmit your photos via the app for a research study. In this study, we will test if digital cell phone images can be used to develop diagnostic algorithms for melanoma. To do so, we need a large number of images. You can also enroll in the Melanoma Community Registry and become a warrior in our "army," to fight melanoma on multiple fronts.
Where can I find the MoleMapper™ App?
Mole Mapper is an application for the iPhone platform, and can be found within the Apple iTunes® Store.
Technical support for the App: Mole Mapper is a small team effort and the app is in active development. We may not respond to every suggestion for improvement, but please know your feedback is read and carefully considered. If you find a bug or something broken, please let us know. You can email us at molemapper@gmail.com. If you like Mole Mapper, tell a friend or rate us on the Apple App Store or Google Play. In your review, feel free to tell us about your favorite mole name or suggest a clever mole name that we will put in to the app for its next release.
Study questions: If you have questions at any time before, during, or after the study, you can contact:
Dr. Sancy Leachman, Principal Investigator, at 1-844-300-SPOT (7768) or WarOnMelanoma@OHSU.edu, or Tracy Petrie, Co-Investigator at molemapper@ohsu.edu.
Privacy: For questions, comments or requests regarding the privacy policy or our processing of your information, please see our privacy policy on the Profile page of the app.
Independent Contact: You may also contact OHSU's Institutional Review Board at (503) 494-7887 or irb@ohsu.edu if your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team; you want to talk to someone besides the research team; you have questions about your rights as a research subject; or you want to get more information or provide input about this research.
The MoleMapper study and its mobile application are not designed to and do not provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, treatment or healthcare services to you or any other individual. Mole Mapper is for research purposes only. You should not use the information provided in the app, phone, email correspondence or website in place of a visit, call consultation or advice from your physician or other healthcare provider. Sage Bionetworks is not liable or responsible for any advice, course of treatment, diagnosis or any other information, services or product you obtain through the app.