GP-Screening Study

Study aim: The aim of this prospective study is to determine whether the adjunct of dermoscopy to the standard clinical examination allows improving the accuracy of general physicians in the melanoma screening conducted in a primary care setting. Intervention: A teaching course of 4 hours will be provided to the 50 GP (general physician) involved in the study. In particular, GP will learn how to apply the ABCD rule for the clinical diagnosis of melanoma and the 3-point checklist for the dermoscopic differentiation between benign and malignant pigmented skin lesions. After this learning phase, 25 GP`s will be assigned to a group evaluating PSL by means of standard clinical examination and the rest to a group adding dermoscopy to the standard assessment of PSL. Each GP in both groups will determine if the lesions are suspicious or banal. Then, at least two experienced dermatologists in a referral center (Pigmented Lesion Clinic, Department of Dermatology, Second University of Naples) will examine both groups of patients with banal and suspicious lesions and the proportion of diagnostic concordance between GP and dermatologists will be evaluated. All lesions that will be considered suspicious by the dermatologist will be excised and subsequently diagnosed histopathologically. We will actually verify if the use of dermoscopy allows to decrease the number of benign PSL that are considered suspicious in the primary clinical screening for melanoma and if the use of dermoscopy may increase the number of early melanomas and/or other pigmented skin malignancies correctly idenitified compared to standard clinical examination.