Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
Internal Medicine, Primary Healthcare Corporation, Doha, Qatar.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 3;17(8):e0270487. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270487. eCollection 2022.
Color vision deficiency describes the inability to distinguish certain shades of color. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of having color vision deficiency on the accuracy of distinguishing benign and malignant skin lesions by naked-eye examination.
This was a cross-sectional study conducted during the period August 2020 to February 2021. We randomly selected a total of 20 nevi and 20 melanoma images from an open access image database. The 40 images were divided into four sets of images, each set contained 5 benign and 5 malignant skin lesion images simulated as if they were seen by a protanope physician, deuteranope physician, tritanope physician, and a set of images presented without simulation. In an online survey, students who were in their final year of medical school or had newly graduated were asked to diagnose each image as benign or malignant.
A total of 140 participants were included with a mean (SD) age of 24.88 (1.51). We found a significantly higher mean accuracy for non-simulated images compared to deuteranope simulated images (p< 0.001, mean difference = 11.07, 95% CI 8.40 to 13.74). We did not find a significant difference in accuracy classification for protanope simulated images (p = 0.066), nor for tritanope simulated images (p = 0.315). Classification accuracy for malignant lesions was higher than classification accuracy for benign lesions, with the highest difference belonging to deuteranope simulated images, with a difference in mean accuracy of classifying malignant lesions by 32.2 (95% CI 27.0 to 37.6).
Deuteranope participants (i.e., green color deficiency) had a significantly lower accuracy of distinguishing pigmented skin lesions as benign or malignant, an impact not found for other color vision deficiencies, which was mainly for misdiagnosing benign lesions as malignant.
色觉缺陷描述的是无法区分某些颜色色调的能力。本研究旨在评估色觉缺陷对通过肉眼检查区分良性和恶性皮肤病变准确性的影响。
这是一项 2020 年 8 月至 2021 年 2 月期间进行的横断面研究。我们从一个开放获取图像数据库中随机选择了总共 20 个痣和 20 个黑色素瘤图像。这 40 个图像被分为四组图像，每组包含 5 个良性和 5 个恶性皮肤病变图像，模拟为红绿色盲医生、绿色盲医生、蓝黄色盲医生和一组无模拟图像所见的图像。在一项在线调查中，我们要求医学生或刚毕业的医学生对每张图像进行诊断，判断其为良性或恶性。
共有 140 名参与者，平均（SD）年龄为 24.88（1.51）。我们发现，与绿色盲模拟图像相比，未模拟图像的平均准确率显著更高（p<0.001，平均差异=11.07，95%CI 8.40 至 13.74）。我们未发现红绿色盲模拟图像（p=0.066）或蓝黄色盲模拟图像（p=0.315）的准确率分类有显著差异。恶性病变的分类准确率高于良性病变，差异最大的属于绿色盲模拟图像，恶性病变的平均准确率差异为 32.2（95%CI 27.0 至 37.6）。
绿色盲（即绿色色觉缺陷）参与者在区分良性或恶性色素性皮肤病变方面的准确性显著降低，而其他色觉缺陷则没有这种影响，主要是将良性病变误诊为恶性病变。
