Prevention of work-related skin diseases: teledermatology as an alternative approach in occupational screenings.
BACKGROUND
Prevention of occupational skin diseases is of high socio-economic impact. Implementing teledermatology into preventive occupational screenings holds obvious advantages; nevertheless, studies concerning this subject are scarce.


OBJECTIVE
The present cross-sectional study was aimed at determining if results of a teledermatological examination are equally sensitive and specific at detecting minimal skin lesions as the conventional face-to-face examination.


METHODS
The skin condition of the hands of 100 male wet workers was assessed in a face-to-face examination and a tele-examination by means of a score for minimal skin lesions.


RESULTS
The comparison of the total score values that each participant received in face-to-face examination with those obtained in tele-examination proved the skin condition to be estimated significantly worse when seen in tele-examination (P < 0.0001). The median values of the sum totals and the median values for secondary lesions were higher in the tele-examination than in the face-to-face examination.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings show a tendency in tele-examination to assess the skin condition more critically in comparison with face-to-face examination. The teledermatological examination is sufficiently sensitive in detecting early signs of hand eczema, whereas signs for chronicity may get overestimated.
Baumeister
Thomas
T
Institute and Outpatient Clinic of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany. thomas.baumeister@ipasum.imed.uni-erlangen.de
Weistenhöfer
Wobbeke
W
Drexler
Hans
H
Kütting
Birgitta
B
D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D009783:Dermatitis, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006229:Hand Dermatoses / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010808:Physical Examination; D019114:Remote Consultation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric