On May 1, 2023, an Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) dermatologist and a multi-disciplinary team confirmed that a tiny spot on Christy Staats’s cheek — measured just 0.65 millimeters or 0.025 inches — and almost invisible to the human eye confirmed the spot was indeed a melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer.

To identify this micro-skin cancer, Alexander Witkowski, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of dermatology at the OHSU School of Medicine, used a combination of dermoscopy — an examination of skin lesions with a dermatoscope — and Reflectance Confocal Microscopy, which is an imaging tool that helps clinicians monitor and diagnose skin lesions without needing to cut into the skin.

Catching this skin cancer early earned the OHSU team the Guinness World Record for the ‘Smallest Detected Skin Cancer.’ The American Cancer Society estimated that in 2023, about 97,610 new melanomas will be diagnosed in the U.S. This peer-reviewed and scientifically-validated skin cancer is a micro-melanoma in-situ, a type of cancer that is found exclusively on the top layer of the skin. Witkowski says this is important because “it was found before it had the opportunity to spread to other parts of the body.”