Usefulness of dermatoscopy in the diagnosis of non-melanoma skin cancer

Abstract

Background: the incidence of skin cancer has increased in the last decades. Nowadays between two and three million non-melanoma skin cancers are annually diagnosed.Objective: to characterize the patients with a clinico-histopathologic diagnosis of non-melanoma skin cancer treated at the department of dermatology of the “Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna” General Teaching Hospital of Las Tunas, from September 2017 to December 2018, where dermatoscopy was used as part of the process of diagnosis.Methods: a descriptive analytical study was carried out with patients with non-melanoma skin cancer as declared in the objective. The sample was made up of 112 patients, who underwent clinical and dermatoscopic examination and skin biopsy. The information was processed through descriptive statistics using percentage analysis. The Kendall rank correlation coefficient was calculated for the relationship between the clinical and the dermatoscopic diagnoses.Results: there was a higher frequency in men (58 %), in the 30 to 50 age group (44,6 %) in those exposed to maintained solar radiation (77,7 %) and in those who never used sunscreens (56,3 %). Type II skin was the most affected one (61,6 %). The face was the most frequent location (67,8 %). The most remarkable dermatoscopic findings were arborescent vessels, white-gray veil, ulceration and hemorrhages. Conclusions: some variables were characterized in patients with non-melanoma skin cancer. According to the Kendall rank correlation coefficient there is a significantly direct and strong relation between the clinical diagnosis using dermatoscopy and the histological one.

Keywords

• facial neoplasms
• carcinoma, basal cell
• carcinoma, squamous cell
• ultraviolet rays