These days, Katie Brice keeps a close watch on the sun and her skin. She was a lifeguard for years and never thought twice about skin cancer.

“It was back before we wore much sunscreen or hats or anything, so I had a lot of sun exposure,” she said.

Too much sun led to a pre-cancerous spot on her back. Doctors caught it in time, but back then, they didn't have what is called a Mela Find--a high-tech machine that gets under a patient's skin.

“This machine finds 98 percent of melanomas and that is really interesting because it’s able to catch the earliest ones,” Dr. Nicole Mathis with Westlake Dermatology said.

Mela Find goes below the skin's surface and finds anything suspicious quickly.

“What it’s able to do is look about two millimeters under the skin surface and it does so painlessly and non-invasively,” Dr. Mathis said.

The machine gives results in numbers. Anything above a one and the mole needs to be removed.

Katie's reading was high, but still below the cut-off point. She said she wished Mela Find was around when she was first diagnosed years ago.

Visit MelaFind.com for more information.