Clinical Investigation

Comparison of Dermoscopic and Histopathologic Diagnoses of Naevus Naevocellularis

  • Mustafa Turhan SAHIN
  • Aylin TÜREL ERMERTCAN
  • Isil INANIR
  • Mehmet Akif DEMIR
  • Serap ÖZTÜRKCAN

Received Date: 06.01.2004 Accepted Date: 25.05.2004 Meandros Med Dent J 2004;5(2):19-22

Purpose: Differential diagnosis in melanocytic skin lesions is important in determining the treatment modality. In the past, histopathologic examination was mostly used for this aim. Recently, dermoscopy is widely used as an alternative noninvasive diagnostic method, so that it increases preoperative diagnostic accuracy. In this study our aim was to determine whether dermoscopy can substitute for histopathologic examination in the diagnosis of naevus naevocellularis. Materials and Methods: 25 naevus naevocellularis of 22 patients, who had admitted to our nevus follow-up clinic between September 1998-June 1999, were enrolled in this study. After dermoscopic and histopathologic examinations of all the lesions were completed, the concordance between dermoscopic and histopathologic diagnoses were evaluated. Manual dermoscope was used for routine dermoscopic examinations. Finally, dermoscopic photographs of the lesions were taken by Dermaphot. Kappa value was interpreted to assesss the agreement between dermoscopic and histopathologic methods. Results: Dermoscopic examination revealed 7 jonksiyonel nevus naevocellularis (NNC), 15 bileþik NNC, 3 intradermal NNC, where as histopathologic examination revealed 7 jonksiyonel NNC, 10 bileþik NNC, 8 intradermal NNC. Of the 25 lesions dermoscopically examined, the diagnoses of 20 (80%) were concordant with the histopathologic diagnoses. The agreement between dermoscopic and histopathologic methods was good (K value= 0.69).; Conclusion: Although dermoscopy is widely used as an alternative noninvasive diagnostic method in the differential diagnosis of melanocytic skin lesions recently, our results have led us to conclude that this popular method can not substitute for histopathologic examination in the diagnosis of naevus naevocellularis.

Keywords: Dermoscopy, Melanocytic pigmented skin lesions, Naevus naevocellularis, Histopathologic examination