While traditional screening methods for skin cancer have been known to be time consuming and often painful, cutting edge technology is now making detecting and tracking skin cancer easier.

Over one million people are diagnosed with skin cancer each year. Tiray Wellen said he can remember vividly when he was told he was among that number.

"You know, I always ran around playing Frisbee without a T-shirt on," he said of his behavior before he was diagnosed with melanoma, which is a potentially fatal form of skin cancer

Wellen said the news changed his life and actions.

In Wellen's case, the cancer was removed before it spread. However, after undergoing such a scare, Wellen said he now knows the importance of catching cancer early.

SolarScan is among a new wave of technology that monitors and measures potentially cancerous moles.

"We know if we can diagnose melanoma early, it has an almost 99 percent cure rate," said Dr. Rakesh Paten, family medicine.

The machine takes a snapshot and compares it to a database of hundreds of cancerous lesions. SolarScan examines the spot's color, size and shape.

"Then we'll have a record," Paten said.

The technology gives doctors an estimate of whether the suspicious moles are cancerous, which helps weed out unnecessary biopsies.

E-mail jstsjames@wfaa.com