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Increasing Frequency of Seborrheic Keratosis Diagnoses as a Favorable Consequence of Teledermatology-Based Skin Cancer Screening: A Cross-sectional Study of 34,553 Patients

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An Erratum to this article was published on 09 May 2017

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Screening of skin cancer by teledermatology (TD) has improved the early detection of skin cancer by enhancing access to skin cancer clinics.

Objective

We sought to analyze how TD-based skin cancer screening has changed the frequency of consultations for benign lesions.

Patients and methods

A cross-sectional study including teleconsultations received during a 7-year period was conducted to analyze and compare the trendlines of each lesion type over the study period. Trendlines were analyzed using a linear regression model with the R-squared (R 2) test for goodness of fit.

Results

A total of 34,553 teleconsultations were included in the study. Seborrheic keratoses, followed by benign melanocytic lesions, were the most frequent lesions diagnosed. The pick-up rate for malignant lesions was 1:8.6 teleconsultations. Seborrheic keratoses and precancerous lesions showed a positive trendline with good fit to the linear model (R 2 = 0.8 and R 2 = 0.8, respectively). Tis-T1 malignant melanoma (in situ melanoma or melanoma with a Breslow thickness <1 mm) showed an increasing trendline with moderate-to-low fit to the model (R 2 = 0.4).

Conclusions

TD-based screening of skin cancer is associated with an increasing rate of consultations involving seborrheic keratoses, which can be considered a consequence of improved access to dermatologists resulting from TD implementation.

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Change history

  • 09 May 2017

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chief of the Medical and Surgical Dermatology Unit, HUVM Teledermatology Network, Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena, Avda. Dr. Fedriani s/n, 41009, Seville, Spain

    David Moreno-Ramírez, Jesús Raya-Maldonado, Macarena Morales-Conde, Teresa Ojeda-Vila, Francisco J. Martín-Gutiérrez, Andrés Ruíz-de-Casas, Almudena Fernández-Orland & Lara Ferrándiz

  2. ICT Department, Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena, Seville, Spain

    Herrerías-Esteban JM

Authors
  1. David Moreno-Ramírez
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  2. Jesús Raya-Maldonado
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  3. Macarena Morales-Conde
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  4. Teresa Ojeda-Vila
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  5. Francisco J. Martín-Gutiérrez
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  6. Andrés Ruíz-de-Casas
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  7. Almudena Fernández-Orland
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  8. Herrerías-Esteban JM
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  9. Lara Ferrándiz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Moreno-Ramírez.

Ethics declarations

The local institutional review board has reviewed and approved this study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

This study has been partially funded by a competitive grant obtained from the Health Council of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Spain (PI0276-2013).

Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40257-017-0291-z.

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Moreno-Ramírez, D., Raya-Maldonado, J., Morales-Conde, M. et al. Increasing Frequency of Seborrheic Keratosis Diagnoses as a Favorable Consequence of Teledermatology-Based Skin Cancer Screening: A Cross-sectional Study of 34,553 Patients. Am J Clin Dermatol 18, 681–685 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40257-017-0283-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40257-017-0283-z

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