Advances in the diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions.

Abstract

Early detection of skin cancer allows timely treatment and improves clinical outcome. The armamentarium for diagnosing skin cancer has been growing notably over the last decades. New tools have led to earlier recognition and a more specific and sensitive diagnosis. In this editorial, we discuss several recent studies published in the BJD on the diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions. The majority of studies published on the detection of skin cancer have investigated methods that are already widely accepted and increasingly used in dermatology, such as dermatoscopy, reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) and teledermatology. Other investigators have walked off the beaten paths and reported unconventional findings, for example Willis et al. investigated a dog's olfactory ability to discriminate melanoma from control skin lesions.1 In this study, a Labrador, named Ronnie, performed 20 double‐blind tests, each requiring the selection of one melanoma from nine controls, consisting of three each of basal cell carcinomas, naevi and healthy skin. Ronnie correctly identified the melanoma on nine occasions (45%), vs. two expected by chance alone. This creative work demonstrates that invasive melanoma emits volatile organic compounds that differ from those of control lesions. The volatile compounds might be utilized as new biomarkers for a noninvasive diagnosis of melanoma using standardized biochemical assays.