Reflectance Confocal Microscopy for Inflammatory Skin Diseases

Abstract

In vivo reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is a relatively novel non-invasive tool for microscopic evaluation of the skin used prevalently for diagnosis and management of skin tumour. Its axial resolution, its non-invasive and easy clinical application represents the goals for a large diffusion of this technique. During the last 15 years, RCM has been demonstrated to be able to increase the sensibility and sensitivity of dermoscopy in the diagnosis of skin tumours integrating in real time clinic, dermoscopic and microscopic information useful for the definition of malignancy. Despite to date, no large comparative studies on inflammatory skin diseases has been published in the literature, several papers already showed that RCM has a potential for the evaluation of the descriptive features of the most common inflammatory skin diseases as psoriasis, lupus erythematosus, contact dermatitis and others. The aim of the application of this technique in non-neoplastic skin diseases has been prevalently focused on the possibility of clinical diagnosis confirmation, as well as therapeutic management. Moreover, the use of RCM as driver for an optimised skin biopsy has been also followed in order to reduce the number of unsuccessful histopathological examination. In this review article we describe the confocal features of the major groups of inflammatory skin disorders focusing on psoriasiform dermatitis, interface dermatitis and spongiotic dermatitis.

Keywords: Dermatitis de interfase; Dermatitis espongiótica; Dermatitis psoriasiforme; Enfermedades inflamatorias; Inflammatory diseases; Interface dermatitis; Microscopia confocal de reflectancia; Psoriasiform dermatitis; Reflectance confocal microscopy; Spongiotic dermatitis.