Abstract
The technique of dermoscopy has come a long way since its inception for characterization of suspicious nevi for early detection of dysplastic changes in predisposed individuals. Not only has its scope expanded to aid in quick diagnosis of a majority of nonmelanocytic disorders of the skin, hair, and nails, but it is being rightfully exploited for a plethora of nondiagnostic uses. Its use in the diagnosis of various pigmentary, papulosquamous, and infectious disorders and disorders of the scalp and hair, nails, and mucosa bears testimony to the ongoing expansion of its protean indications across skin types. Dermoscopy has transformed the conventional approach to dermatological diagnosis from clinicopathological correlation to clinico-dermoscopic-pathological correlation. It aids in convincing an otherwise reluctant patient to agree to biopsy and guides the selection of optimum site for the same. Dermoscopic clues suggestive of stability or activity of the lesion and/or disease in various dermatoses are being accrued. Early assessment of therapeutic response to treatment is helpful for physicians, patients, and researchers conducting clinical studies. Aesthetic uses of dermoscopy are opulent and being explored. Dermoscopy has also provided the much-needed balancing act of interaction between practitioners and the new generation of patients. Last but not the least, dermoscopy has resulted in patients' better understanding of their disorders and improved compliance with treatment protocols.
Highlights
Dermoscopy helps in selection of the optimum site for biopsy, which increases the likelihood of a definitive histopathological diagnosis instead of reporting of nonspecific features by the pathologist
Akin to ex-vivo dermoscopy, which is useful for the histopathologist, in-vivo dermoscopy can add to clinical examination for the operating surgeon during surgical excision of tumors such as the basal cell carcinoma (BCC)
When surgical ablation is contemplated for a BCC, excision margins between 3 and 10 mm allow for radical excision in up to 95% of cases depending on the tumor site, size, borders, and histology
Summary
We employed a rather crude method for these statistics (explained in Table 1 footnotes), the figures offer a fair hint about the increase in awareness with regard to using and publishing about this technique. In the past few years, this technique has been successfully explored for diagnosis of various skin, scalp, and nail disorders [3]. Subspecialties such as pigmentaroscopy, inflammoscopy (papulosquamous disorders), entodermoscopy (infections and infestations), trichoscopy (scalp and hair), onychoscopy (nails), and mucoscopy are branching out within the broad ambit of dermoscopy. Histopathology remains the current gold standard of cutaneous diagnosis, dermoscopy and other noninvasive techniques have revolutionized the approach to diagnosis of cutaneous disorders.
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