Evaluation of Optical Coherence Tomography as a Means of Identifying Earlier Stage Basal Cell Carcinomas while Reducing the Use of Diagnostic Biopsy.

Abstract

In a population of clinically challenging lesions, optical coherence tomography improved diagnostic certainty by a factor of four over clinical examination alone and improved diagnostic accuracy by 50 percent (57-88%). The addition of optical coherence tomography to other standard assessments can improve the false-positive rate and give a high degree of certainty for ruling in a positive diagnosis for basal cell carcinoma. A reduction of 36 percent in overall biopsies could be achieved by sending high certainty basal cell carcinoma positive optical coherence tomography diagnoses straight to surgery.