Archive

Winter 2008, Vol. 16 No. 4

Hong Kong J. Dermatol. Venereol. (2008) 16, 189-196

Original Article

A study of dermoscopic features of pigmented basal cell carcinoma in Hong Kong Chinese

GJ Chan 陳慶釗 and HHF Ho 何慶豐

Abstract
A dermoscopic method based on an absent pigment network and the presence of at least one of six criteria has been described for the diagnosis of pigmented basal cell carcinoma (BCC). A retrospective analysis of dermoscopic and clinical images collected from three dermatology clinics performed by two blinded dermoscopists found a sensitivity of 97.0% and specificity of 93.4% of the proposed method while intraobserver and interobserver agreement was excellent (κ=0.94 and κ=0.90 respectively). The combination of dermoscopy with photography-based predictions of clinical probability demonstrated an improvement in diagnostic accuracy for the noninvasive diagnosis of BCC.