TUESDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay News) -- The introduction of total body digital photography did not significantly influence the number of biopsies performed on patients during their first year of treatment at a pigmented lesion clinic, according to study findings published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Jessica Risser, M.D., of Emory University in Atlanta, and colleagues reviewed the charts of 128 patients (mean age 36 years; 55.5 percent female) with multiple atypical moles, who had been treated at a pigmented lesion clinic between 1998 and 2003. Half the participants had received total body digital photography and half had not.
There was no difference between the two groups in terms of the number of severe dysplastic nevi diagnosed or the number of biopsies performed before they began treatment at the clinic. There was also no difference between the two groups in the number of biopsies performed or the number of dysplastic nevi diagnosed in a patient's first year of care at the clinic. A patient's history of melanoma and treatment were found to be more significant predictors of the number of biopsies than total body digital photography.
"Future studies should be directed at prospectively evaluating whether total body digital photography is both more sensitive and specific than total body skin examination alone for detecting dysplastic nevi and, more importantly, melanoma," the authors conclude.
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