A Call to Action: Evidence for the Military Integration of Teledermoscopy in a Pandemic Era

Abstract

Skin disease remains a common complaint among deployed service members. To mitigate the limited supply of dermatologists in the U.S. Military Health System, teledermatology has been harnessed as a specialist extender platform, allowing for online consultations in remote deployed settings. Operational teledermatology has played a critical role in reductions of medical evacuations with significant cost-savings. When direct in-person lesion visualization is unattainable, teledermoscopy can be harnessed as an effective diagnostic tool to distinguish suspicious skin lesions. Teledermoscopy has the versatile capacity for streamlined incorporation into the existing asynchronous telemedicine platforms utilized worldwide among deployed U.S. military healthcare providers. In terms of clinical utility, teledermoscopy offers a unique and timely opportunity to improve diagnostic accuracy, early detection rates, and prognostic courses for dermatological conditions. Such improvements will further reduce medical evacuations and separations, thereby improving mission readiness and combat effectiveness. As mission goals are safeguarded, associated operational budget costs are also preserved. This innovative, cost-effective technology merits integration into the U.S. Military Health System (MHS).

DMpDP: a Diagnostic Multiple-patient DermoFeature Profile store-and-forward teledermoscopy system

“…In such case, a large bandwidth is needed to transmit the large number of high-resolution dermoscopy images, as a single high-resolution dermoscopy image can reach up to several MBs. This is why bandwidth is still a requirement in telemedicine systems, as also mentioned in the following recent papers [ 37 , 38 ].…”

A review of skin disease in military soldiers: challenges and potential solutions

“…Close physical contact is a means of transmission, and in the most recent outbreak, was associated almost exclusively with sexual contact [ 89 , 90 ]. Monkeypox exanthems most commonly appear on the face, extremities, and groin and first presents as maculopapular eruptions that turn into vesicles that later crust ( Figure 7 ) [ 91 ]. Monkeypox cases have been described in military soldiers [ 92 ].…”

“…By 8/2022, 40 monkeypox cases were diagnosed in the US military. The Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center has a system in place to track monkeypox cases across all military branches and determined that monkeypox risk in the military is low [ 91 ]. There is no current approved treatment for monkeypox, but the antiviral medications tecovirimat, brincidofovir, and cidofovir used to treat smallpox are sometimes used.…”