A dermoscopy survey to assess who is using it and why it is or is not being used

Abstract

Dermoscopy is a widely used tool for the diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions. The use of dermoscopy is increasing in popularity amongst dermatologists, making it necessary to better understand dermoscopy and to analyse why physicians use it or do not use it. The survey indicated that the majority of physicians used dermoscopy in order to reduce patient anxiety and to detect melanoma early. The main reason why dermatologists found dermoscopy to be ineffective was that they felt that it was not useful in detecting melanoma earlier than traditional methods; 35% of dermatologists surveyed believed that dermoscopy required excessive training. These results imply that current training methods need to be modified. Training is limited to large dermatology centers and is not being transferred to general centers, which would allow it to be more accessible to a larger group of dermatologists in training. There is also a need to make the learning of dermoscopy easier and to establish a universal method of teaching. Overall, there is a need for improvement in the education of dermoscopy, ranging from training to information on the basics of dermoscopy. This would include aspects such as how long the average examination takes and dermoscopy's effectiveness compared with alternate methods.

Factors driving the use of dermoscopy in Europe: a pan-European survey

“…The importance of education for enhancing the use of dermoscopy was a main finding of our study, confirming the insights from previous national reports on a pan‐European scale . Half of dermatologists who did not use dermoscopy had not received any training in dermoscopy, and a lack of training and confidence in their own dermoscopy skills were among the main reasons for not using dermoscopy.…”

“…Dermoscopy has become an essential tool for the early detection of skin cancers and noninvasive dermatological diagnosis . It is considered to be widely used in Europe; however, reports on dermoscopy use by dermatologists have been carried out in only two European countries so far, compared with broader analysis in Australia and the U.S.A …”

Melanoma awareness and prevalence of dermoscopic examination among internet users: a cross-sectional survey

“…For example, 42.7% of US dermatologists reported no prior experience with dermoscopy. Thus, the accessibility of dermoscopy training should be improved, and the learning methods should be more approachable and unified [18]. Our data present that a significant number of people who are at risk of melanoma have also never been examined by dermoscopy and are unaware of this type of the diagnostic method.…”

New Diagnostic Aids for Melanoma

“…21 Despite the advantages of using dermatoscopy, only about 60% of dermatologists in the US are trained in its use, and less than half report using dermatoscopy daily. 22 (Figure 1)…”