Melanoma Diagnosis Via Teledermatology
Source: Managed Health Care Excutive, March 2023
Telehealth has become a routine part of U.S. healthcare, but it seems particularly well suited for dermatology. With relative ease, people can use their phones to take a picture or a short video of a troubling rash or spot and send it to dermatology practice. Real-time consults are also relatively easy.
Still, there’s some uncertainty about how “teledermatology" might be used in the detection and diagnosis of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. The American Cancer Society projects that approximately 98,000 cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year and just under 8,000 people will die from the disease.
Erik Jaklitsch, a second-year medical school student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and his colleagues, may have helped filled the gap in understanding of telehealth’s role in melanoma care with a presentation of findings from a retrospective study comparing melanoma cases that first presented via a teledermatology visit with those that first presented during an in-person visit. The study included all the melanoma cases identified in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center system over a two-and-half-year period from 2020 to 2022.