title: The seven features for melanoma: a new dermoscopic algorithm for the diagnosis of malignant melanoma.
abstract: The clinical diagnosis of melanoma has a mean sensitivity of 67%, dermoscopy or dermatoscopy is a non invasive technique which improves this sensitivity. Our purpose was to create a simple dermoscopic method for the diagnosis of melanoma useful in daily office practice. For this reason a training set of 218 cutaneous pigmented lesions was used and scored for 16 dermoscopic features: for each feature sensitivity, specificity and statistical significance were evaluated. The results were used to create a simple dermoscopic diagnostic method of only seven dermoscopic features (7FFM). The method was used to evaluate a test set of 713 pigmented skin lesions consecutively observed. The diagnostic dermoscopic method developed gave a sensitivity of 94.6%, a specificity of 85.5% and an efficiency of 87.6%. Our method improves the sensitivity in the diagnosis of melanoma and can be used for the screening of pigmented skin lesions.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Dermatologic Sciences, University of Milan, Ospedale Maggiore di Milano IRCCS, via Pace 9, 20122 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dal Pozzo
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Benelli
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Roscetti
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology