The use of teledermatology for the diagnosis of skin cancer in adults

Abstract

Background Early accurate detection of all skin cancer types is essential to guide appropriate management and to improve morbidity and survival. Melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are high risk skin cancers which have the potential to metastasise and ultimately lead to death, whereas basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is usually localised with potential to infiltrate and damage surrounding tissue. Anxiety around missing early curable cases needs to be balanced against inappropriate referral and unnecessary excision of benign lesions. Teledermatology provides a way for generalist clinicians to access the opinion of a specialist dermatologist for skin lesions that they consider to be suspicious without referring the patients concerned through the normal referral pathway. Teledermatology consultations can be ‘store-and-forward’ with electronic digital images of a lesion sent to a dermatologist for review at a later time, or can be live and interactive consultations using video conferencing to connect the patient, referrer and dermatologist in real time. Objectives To determine the diagnostic accuracy of teledermatology for the detection of any skin cancer (melanoma, BCC or cSCC) in