{"title":"Dermoscopy: distinguishing malignant tumors from benign","authors":"Andrea Gulia, A. Brunasso, C. Massone","doi":"10.1586/EDM.12.47","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Dermoscopy has dramatically developed, becoming a well-established routine technique in many countries in the mid-1980s. Dermoscopy allows physicians to observe structures and colors otherwise not visible to unaided eyes, increasing melanoma diagnostic accuracy by up to 35%. Moreover, dermoscopy allows for increases in the number of diagnosed and excised melanomas together with a reduction in the number of unnecessary excisions. New data are continuously acquired mostly on melanoma diagnosis, follow-up of melanocytic lesions and nevogenesis. Short-term 3-month follow-up is the optimum time interval for identifying minimal changes in featureless melanomas. Nevertheless, long-term follow-up is similarly useful for the recognition of changes in melanomas with very low rates of growth. In the last few years a huge number of publications on dermoscopy have been published. The aim of this review is to summarize the most important recent advances in dermoscopy.","PeriodicalId":12255,"journal":{"name":"Expert Review of Dermatology","volume":"70 1","pages":"439-458"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2012-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"9","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Expert Review of Dermatology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1586/EDM.12.47","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 9
Abstract
Dermoscopy has dramatically developed, becoming a well-established routine technique in many countries in the mid-1980s. Dermoscopy allows physicians to observe structures and colors otherwise not visible to unaided eyes, increasing melanoma diagnostic accuracy by up to 35%. Moreover, dermoscopy allows for increases in the number of diagnosed and excised melanomas together with a reduction in the number of unnecessary excisions. New data are continuously acquired mostly on melanoma diagnosis, follow-up of melanocytic lesions and nevogenesis. Short-term 3-month follow-up is the optimum time interval for identifying minimal changes in featureless melanomas. Nevertheless, long-term follow-up is similarly useful for the recognition of changes in melanomas with very low rates of growth. In the last few years a huge number of publications on dermoscopy have been published. The aim of this review is to summarize the most important recent advances in dermoscopy.