Every year, troubled patients visit health centers to check different types of skin spots. In some cases, it may be difficult for the physicians to make a correct assessment and send the patient to the hospital for a specialist assessment.

"For example, cancer in a liver spot may have colors other than brown, which are difficult to see for the naked eye," says district physician Magnus Falk, district physician at the Care Center Kärna, on the Östergötland Region website.

Photographs with a smartphone

But thanks to a new technology called teledermatoscopy, doctors at health centers can now take a picture but a camera from a smartphone, and then enlarge it into a dermatoscope.

The image will then be greatly enlarged and detailed, and doctors will be able to see colors and textures much better.

- Previously, we had to call more people to the hospital for extra checks, also for skin spots that were harmless. Digital assessments save time for both the patient and the care, says Marie Thollander, process manager at the skin clinic at the University Hospital in Linköping.