The additional diagnostic value of optical coherence tomography in clinically diagnosed basal cell carcinomas undergoing direct surgical excision.

Abstract

Clinical examination appears to be very sensitive for diagnosing BCC (90%), but the specificity is reported to be low (28.6-48.9%).(1, 2) Additional use of dermoscopy can increase specificity to 54.3-55.6% compared to clinical examination alone.(1, 2) With use of optical coherence tomography (OCT), a non-invasive diagnostic method, in addition to clinical and dermoscopic examination, it is possible to further increase the specificity to 76% at a sensitivity of 95%.(1, 3, 4) These results apply to a population of patients with a clinical suspicion of BCC who had an indication for biopsy (e.g. high risk location or uncertainty about diagnosis).