THz-Skin: pioneers in the early diagnosis of skin cancer

17/03/2026 FBK will contribute to the European project by microfabricating the sensors at the core of a system designed to diagnose subcutaneous cancer forms in a noninvasive way and without radiation.

Skin cancer causes over 36,000 deaths every year in the EU and costs around €9 billion in healthcare and indirect costs. The PTHz-Skin Pathfinder Open project has just started and will run over the next four years with the goal of making early diagnosis faster, safer, and more accessible. The project will create a noninvasive, marker-free diagnostic platform capable of real-time screening without radiation, without the need for expensive equipment, or specialist intervention.

How will this paradigm shift be technically possible? By using the body’s natural thermal output to detect cancer spectral fingerprints in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. This approach was made possible by the H-Cube (ATTRACT Phase II) project, which developed highly sensitive and fast terahertz sensors based on advanced bolometers capable of detecting very weak signals.

The detectors produced in the Clean Rooms of Fondazione Bruno Kessler will serve as the fundamental building blocks of miniaturized, low-cost sensors called Multifrequency Pixels (MFP). These will enable hyperspectral imaging in the 3–25 THz range—that is, the ability to analyze the skin at different terahertz frequencies to identify the distinct “signatures” of healthy and cancerous tissue. Diagnosis will be based on a growing open-access library of spectral fingerprints and on artificial intelligence–based diagnostic tools capable of detecting subcutaneous cancer forms.