Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Skin imaging: is it clinically useful?

Yes ! that is a great title for a very serous paper.  Skin imaging: is it clinically useful?

Kudos to Dr. Deepack Rallan of the Department of Dermatology at the St Helier's Hospital (South London, Surrey, UK) for asking the right question and providing a documented and good discussion in his paper published in the Journal of experimental dermatology ( Sept 2004). Granted..it is not a "recent" paper. But the discussion and fundamentals are still up to date. Let me quote the abstract below: ( online abstract and author contact details here)

Abstract

Non-invasive skin imaging techniques have proliferated over the last decade. Whilst most have a research role, some are routinely used in dermatology clinics. Of these, the skin surface microscope (dermatoscope), a diagnostic aid for pigmented lesions, has had most clinical impact. Such devices, when linked to a videomicroscope for computer analysis, have been dubbed as 'mole scanners'. Mole scanners are increasingly available on a commercial basis even though computer diagnosis of pigmented lesions is currently no better than diagnosis by human experts. Meanwhile, other imaging techniques, such as high-resolution ultrasonography, spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography, may yet find a role in diagnosis and disease monitoring.


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