‘Not ready for prime time’
The FDA panel did not cast formal votes at the July 29 meeting. Rather, the members engaged in broad discussions about risks and potential benefits of new tools for aiding in the detection of skin cancer.
Among the key issues discussed was a question of whether the FDA could impose requirements and restrictions, known as special controls, to provide “reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness” for computer-aided devices that provide adjunctive diagnostic information to dermatologists about lesions suspicious for melanoma.
Dr. Maral Skelsey
Among the potential special controls would be clinical performance testing in regards to rates of the sensitivity (true-positive rate) and specificity (true-negative rate).
The FDA could also look at requirements on software validation and verification and cybersecurity testing, as well as directions on labeling so as to mitigate risk.
Dermatologists serving on the panel called for caution in proceeding with steps that would make it easier for companies to market tools for aiding in melanoma diagnosis than it would be within the class III framework used for MelaFind and Nevisense.
Many expressed concerns about the need to design studies that would answer questions about how well new tools could accurately identify concerning lesions.
The phrase “not ready for prime time” was used at least three times during the discussion.
FDA panelist Maral Skelsey, MD, a skin cancer specialist from Chevy Chase, Maryland, said that over the years, she had used both Nevisense and MelaFind.
She said she had found MelaFind “unusable,” owing in large part to the high number of false positives it generated. The device also was limited as to where on patients’ bodies it could be used.
However, she spoke with enthusiasm about the prospects for better devices to aid in diagnosis of skin lesions. “It’s an area where we’re on the verge, and we really need these devices. There’s a need for patients to be able to examine themselves, for nondermatologists to be able to assess lesions,” Dr. Skelsey said.
But this field is “just not ready for prime time” yet, even with special controls, Dr. Skelsey said. To loosen approval standards too quickly could be a “detriment to what’s coming down the pipeline,” she said.
“It’s harmful to things that are likely to be around the corner,” she said.
FDA panelist Renata Block, PA-C, who works in a Chicago dermatology practice, pressed for maintaining a class III designation. “We are not ready for prime time yet, though the data that is coming down the pipeline on what we have is quite exciting,” Ms. Block said.
FDA panelist Karla V. Ballman, PhD, a statistician from Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, said there would need to be a clear standard for clinical performance before proceeding toward reclassification of devices for aid in detecting melanoma. “I just don’t think it’s ready for prime time at this point and should remain in class III,” she said.
But there was support from some panelists for the idea of a lower bar for clearance, combined with special controls to ensure patient safety.
In expressing her view, FDA panelist Katalin Roth, MD, JD, professor of medicine, George Washington University, Washington, said she was an outlier in her support for the agency’s view that these risks could be managed and that future tools could allow more patients to take a step on the pathway toward critical diagnoses.
“I deal with a lot of people with cancer as a palliative care physician,” Dr. Roth said. “I think what we’re missing here is the issue of time. Melanoma is a terrible disease, and missing the diagnosis is a terrible thing, but I think special controls would be sufficient to counter the concerns of my colleagues on the committee.”
The FDA’s Dr. Ashar ended the meeting with questions posed to one panelist, Veronica Rotemberg, MD, PhD, a dermatologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Dr. Veronica Rotemberg
Dr. Rotemberg has for years been working in the field of research on developing AI and other computer-based tools for detecting and diagnosing melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
She has been publicly skeptical of the performance of commercial apps that scan moles and other lesions and that claim to identify which are cancerous. A May blog post on the Memorial Sloan Kettering website highlighted a recent British Journal of Dermatology article in which Dr. Rotemberg and coauthors reported on their evaluations of commercial apps. They judged them to be on average only 59% accurate, the blog post said.
However, during an earlier discussion at the meeting, she had spoken more positively about the prospects for using special controls in the near term to mitigate risk, although she said she would have a “very long list” of these requirements.
In the closing exchange with Dr. Ashar, Dr. Rotemberg outlined steps that could potentially ensure the safe use of tools to aid in melanoma screening. These included a need for postmarketing surveillance, which would require evaluation over time of algorithms used in tools meant to detect skin cancer.
“We need to have a mechanism for sampling,” Dr. Rotemberg said. “Most of our data is electronic now anyway, so comparing an algorithm and performance with biopsy results should not be that challenging.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.