Jumping into the future using teledermoscopy.

BACKGROUND

Teledermoscopy uses telecommunication technologies to transfer images of pigmented skin lesions via the Internet for teleconsultation.

DESIGN

Clinical and dermoscopic images of 66 and 43 pigmented skin lesions achieved in two consecutive studies were sent by e-mail to dermatologists with different degrees of experience in dermoscopy for a telediagnosis. All lesions included in these studies were surgically excised and diagnosed histopathologically.

RESULTS

The diagnostic concordance between the face-to-face diagnosis and the telediagnosis was 91% in the first study, whereas, in the second study, it varied from 76.7%-95.3%. The accuracy of the diagnoses in both studies was not related to the quality of the images, but did highly depend on the level of diagnostic difficulty of a given pigmented skin tumor and on the level of experience of each observer.

CONCLUSIONS

Teleconsultation of dermoscopic images of pigmented skin lesions via e-mail provides a similar degree of diagnostic accuracy as face-to-face diagnosis when the diagnosis is made by a dermatologist confident with dermoscopy.