Dark pigmented lesions: Diagnostic accuracy of dermoscopy and reflectance confocal microscopy in a tertiary referral center for skin cancer diagnosis

Abstract

Background: There is lack of studies on the diagnostic accuracy of dermoscopy and reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) for dark pigmented lesions.

Objective: To assess the diagnostic accuracy of dermoscopy plus confocal microscopy for melanoma diagnosis of dark pigmented lesions in real life.

Methods: Prospective analysis of difficult dark lesions with clinical/dermoscopic suspicion of melanoma referred for RCM for further analysis. The outcome could be excision or dermoscopic digital follow-up.

Results: We included 370 clinically dark lesions from 350 patients (median age, 45 y). Because of the clinical/dermoscopic/RCM approach, we saved 129 of 213 unnecessary biopsies (specificity of 60.6%), with a sensitivity of 98.1% (154/157). The number needed to excise with the addition of RCM was 1.5 for melanoma diagnosis.

Limitations: Single institution based; Italian population only.

Conclusions: This study showed that RCM coupled with dermoscopy increases the specificity for diagnosing melanoma, and it helps correctly identify benign lesions. Our findings provide the basis for subsequent prospective studies on melanocytic neoplasms belonging to patients in different countries.

Keywords: dermatoscopy; diagnosis; melanocytic; melanoma; nevus; noninvasive; reflectance confocal microscopy.