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.