Dermoscopy of Patients With Multiple Nevi

This article highlights how one should not look at a mole in isolation but in the context of the patient’s other moles. I certainly know that I am less inclined to excise an atypical looking mole if all the other moles look the same.

What do you think.

regards

Ian

 

Dermoscopy of Patients With Multiple Nevi

Improved Management Recommendations Using a Comparative Diagnostic Approach

Giuseppe Argenziano, MD; Caterina Catricalà, MD; Marco Ardigo, MD; Pierluigi Buccini, MD; Paola De Simone, MD; Laura Eibenschutz, MD; Angela Ferrari, MD;Giustino Mariani, MD; Vitaliano Silipo, MD; Iris Zalaudek, MD

Arch Dermatol. 2011;147(1):46-49. doi:10.1001/archdermatol.2010.389

Objective To assess the outcome on management recommendations of a comparative approach vs a morphologic approach in evaluating dermoscopic images of lesions from a series of patients with multiple nevi.

Design In a 2-step study, 6 experienced dermoscopists were asked to provide management recommendations (excision or follow-up) for a series of lesions from patients with multiple nevi based on dermoscopic images of the lesions. In the first step, participating dermoscopists evaluated individual images of lesions based only on morphologic structure (morphologic approach). In the second step, the same lesions were grouped by patient, allowing the participants to evaluate the lesions in the context of other nevi from the same patient (comparative approach).

Setting Academic referral center.

Patients Seventeen patients with 190 lesions (184 monitored nevi, 4 excised nevi, and 2 excised melanomas).

Main Outcome Measure Using pooled data from each step, excision recommendation rates for the comparative approach and the morphologic approach were calculated.

Results Using the morphologic approach, 55.1% of overall recommendations favored excision; using the comparative approach, the rate decreased to 14.1%. The 2 melanomas included in the study were correctly judged to merit excision by all participants in step 1 and in step 2.

Conclusion Among patients with multiple nevi, evaluation of equivocal lesions in the context of a patient’s other nevi results in a lower rate of excision recommendations compared with evaluation of individual lesions based on morphologic structure alone.