Yearly skin-check photo reviews for transplant patients, run with their clinic
TL;DR Lesionly helps kidney and liver transplant clinics check their patients' skin every year. A nurse photographs the skin with a clip-on dermatoscope during a routine follow-up visit, and a dermatologist reviews every image within two days. Transplant hospitals pay per patient a year. The drugs that protect a transplant raise skin-cancer risk sharply.
People on anti-rejection drugs get skin cancers far more often than others. A 2026 review puts their squamous cell carcinoma risk at 65 to 250 times the general population's, and recommends a full skin examination at least yearly[1]. Most of that data comes from fair-skinned countries though, and nobody knows the size of the risk in Indian skin.
Does India do many transplants? Yes. Living-donor kidney transplants run at 9.4 per million people a year and deceased-donor ones at 0.77[2], which by my arithmetic means well over 10,000 kidney transplants a year.
Transplant patients already visit their clinic every few months, but few of them ever see a dermatologist. Limited dermatologist access and no formal screening protocol are the usual barriers worldwide[1].
What it does, in regulatory terms - a specialist review service by registered dermatologists under the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines. Software checks image quality and sorts the queue, and that's it. It does not diagnose. AI platforms may not counsel patients under those guidelines[3], and diagnostic software would need a CDSCO licence[4].
At the yearly visit, a trained nurse photographs any spots the patient or nurse notices, using a phone and a clip-on dermatoscope. A dermatologist reviews each image and replies to the transplant team with one of three calls - clear, benign or needs-a-visit. Suspect lesions get a same-week referral. Every patient's images are kept so the next year's review can compare.
The seed proposed AI skin-cancer checks for everyone. Skin cancer is under 1% of cancers diagnosed in India[5], so screening the general public would find very little. Transplant patients are the group where checks are already recommended[1], and in my opinion that makes them the honest place to start.
The patient benefits. The transplant hospital pays per enrolled patient a year and can fold it into its follow-up package, since it already manages the anti-rejection drugs. There's no public Indian price for this service, so test it with transplant programmes directly. Patient support schemes run by immunosuppressant makers are a possible second payer, with clear conflict-of-interest rules.
Transplant numbers in India keep climbing, with living donors doing most of the work[2]. The Telemedicine Practice Guidelines of March 2020 made doctor-to-doctor remote opinions explicit[3]. Clip-on dermatoscopes for phones are now cheap, and international screening guidance for transplant patients was reviewed again in 2026[1].
Nobody publishes a figure for transplant skin screening in India. The narrowest number is the yearly kidney-transplant flow implied by 9.4 living-donor and 0.77 deceased-donor transplants per million people[2], plus everyone transplanted in earlier years who is still on immunosuppressants. Liver and heart recipients add to it.
Treat the patient count as an estimate until a transplant society publishes one.
In Europe, one CE-marked consumer app that checks spots and escalates to a dermatologist panel[6]. Skin-care apps in India pair photo analysis with dermatologist-built acne and cosmetic plans for consumers[7]. Some large transplant centres have an in-house dermatologist. I found no service built for transplant programmes in India, though my search was limited.
| Difficulty | Moderate (39/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹35–70 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
The service is simple to build. Selling it is not. Transplant teams are busy, and in India screening is a guideline rather than a habit. You also need dermatologists willing to review lots of mostly normal images at a modest fee, and nurses trained to take close-ups that are actually usable.
Yes. This is a doctor-led telemedicine service, and the software must stay outside diagnosis.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI tell a patient that a spot is safe. Registered dermatologists make every call, and AI may not counsel patients under the guidelines.
Want to work out the AI layer for Lesionly? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I like this as a narrow, honest wedge for a founder with a dermatologist partner and a way into transplant programmes. If you're hoping to screen the general public with an app then this isn't it.
Prove two things first - that two transplant centres will pay for a year, and that nurses can photograph a patient in under ten minutes.
Plan for roughly ₹35–70 L, mostly on dermatoscopes, nurse training, dermatologist fees and hospital sales.
Reviewers must be registered doctors following the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines. Software that suggests a diagnosis would need a CDSCO licence, so keep it to quality and queue order.
Yes, transplant patients are the group where checks are already recommended. Check local telemedicine rules and how your regulator treats image software.
The free Lesionly validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the telemedicine, device-software and data-protection checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for transplant teams and dermatologists, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Lesionly or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting busy transplant teams to make a yearly skin check routine, and that's a sales problem I enjoy working on. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.