Patent ID: 7280866

Claim:
A method of diagnosing skin disease comprising: providing a patient having a skin disease selected from the group consisting of dysplastic melanocytic nevi; banal nevi; lentigines; actinic keratoses; seborrheic keratoses; basal cell carcinoma; and malignant melanoma; emitting a beam of visible or near-IR light into a portion of the skin afflicted with the skin disease; collecting and analyzing reflected light from the beam, thereby producing a disease spectrum; emitting a beam of visible or near-IR light into a control skin portion of the patient which is not afflicted with the skin disease; collecting and analyzing reflected light from the beam, thereby producing a control spectrum; comparing the control spectrum and the disease spectrum; and identifying the skin disease as dysplastic melanocytic nevi; banal nevi; lentigines; actinic keratoses; seborrheic keratoses; basal cell carcinoma; or malignant melanoma based on said comparison, said method of diagnosing skin disease having a rapid acquisition time of minutes.