OBJECTIVE: To determine the time required to perform a complete skin examination (CSE) as a means of opportunistic screening for skin cancer both without and with dermoscopy. DESIGN: Randomized, prospective multicenter study. SETTING:Eight referral pigmented lesion clinics. Patients From June 2006 to January 2007, 1359 patients with at least 1 melanocytic or nonmelanocytic skin lesion were randomly selected to receive a CSE without dermoscopy or CSE with dermoscopy. For each patient, the total number of lesions and the duration of the CSE were recorded. A total of 1328 patients were eligible for analysis (31 were excluded because of missing data). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The median time (measured in seconds) needed for CSE with and without dermoscopy and according to total cutaneous lesion count. RESULTS: The median time needed for CSE without dermoscopy was 70 seconds and with dermoscopy was 142 seconds, a significant difference of 72 seconds (P < .001). The use of dermoscopy increased the duration of CSE, and this increase was in direct proportion to the patient's total lesion count. In contrast, the time required to perform a CSE without dermoscopy remained the same irrespective of whether the patients had few or many lesions. CONCLUSIONS: A CSE aided by dermoscopy takes significantly longer than a CSE without dermoscopy. However, a thorough CSE, with or without dermoscopy, requires less than 3 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of added time to potentially prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with skin cancer.
RCT Entities:
OBJECTIVE: To determine the time required to perform a complete skin examination (CSE) as a means of opportunistic screening for skin cancer both without and with dermoscopy. DESIGN: Randomized, prospective multicenter study. SETTING: Eight referral pigmented lesion clinics. Patients From June 2006 to January 2007, 1359 patients with at least 1 melanocytic or nonmelanocytic skin lesion were randomly selected to receive a CSE without dermoscopy or CSE with dermoscopy. For each patient, the total number of lesions and the duration of the CSE were recorded. A total of 1328 patients were eligible for analysis (31 were excluded because of missing data). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The median time (measured in seconds) needed for CSE with and without dermoscopy and according to total cutaneous lesion count. RESULTS: The median time needed for CSE without dermoscopy was 70 seconds and with dermoscopy was 142 seconds, a significant difference of 72 seconds (P < .001). The use of dermoscopy increased the duration of CSE, and this increase was in direct proportion to the patient's total lesion count. In contrast, the time required to perform a CSE without dermoscopy remained the same irrespective of whether the patients had few or many lesions. CONCLUSIONS: A CSE aided by dermoscopy takes significantly longer than a CSE without dermoscopy. However, a thorough CSE, with or without dermoscopy, requires less than 3 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of added time to potentially prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with skin cancer.
Authors: Andreas Blum; Friedrich A Bahmer; Jürgen Bauer; Ralph P Braun; Brigitte Coras-Stepanek; Teresa Deinlein; Thomas Eigentler; Christine Fink; Claus Garbe; Holger A Haenssle; Rainer Hofmann-Wellenhof; Harald Kittler; Jürgen Kreusch; Hubert Pehamberger; Hans Schulz; H Peter Soyer; Wilhelm Stolz; Philipp Tschandl; Iris Zalaudek Journal: Hautarzt Date: 2019-11 Impact factor: 0.751