Encouraging results have been obtained from animal studies, showing that photoacoustic imaging (PAI) may constitute a tool for non‐invasive diagnosis and margin control for skin cancer. However, due to a lack of clinical data, PAI has not yet been approved for clinical use. It is our intention to perform clinical studies with the aim of implementing PAI in the clinical setting.

We hope to be able to non‐invasively discriminate between benign and malignant skin lesions and to define tumour margins, which today can only be done by surgical excision and histological analysis. Measuring tumour margins before surgery would hopefully not only reduce the risk of tumour spread, but also reduce the number of surgical procedures. Furthermore, it may assist in judging whether sentinel node biopsy is required in cases of melanoma. Non‐invasive imaging techniques can be of great benefit to patients and reduce the number of health care interventions.