Monitoring scarring from a distance with Belgian Dermatoo

24/03/2022

Efficient wound care is far from straightforward for nurses, despite regular care and monitoring. The Liège start-up Dermatoo is jumping to the rescue with its system to enable the remote monitoring of scarring.

It is suspected that 2% of the population suffers from long-term wounds that require regular care. Sometimes healing can take up to 20 years. Nurses often come by every day to change dressings, and even then it is sometimes difficult to assess the progress correctly. Calling on a doctor or simply sending them a picture of the wound using WhatsApp seems to be the only answer then.

The invention of Dermatoo puts an end to this less than satisfactory approach. A portable device equipped with a variety of cameras for three-dimensional viewing, a temperature sensor, a calibration system, and a system to measure the depth of the wound, among other things, should allow for rapid and efficient diagnosis and follow-up and more easily reveal any deterioration, infections, onset of necrosis, etc. Both the collection and sharing of the data via an app with health professionals is now complete.

Meanwhile, private investors are getting excited about the system, and at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona recently, even two large Spanish hospitals expressed an interest. Moreover, it's only a matter of time before the product hits the market.