Changes in melanoma diagnosis after presurgical tertiary care center review

Abstract

Funding sources: Supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under award number 5 T32 AR 7569-23. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Reproducibility of the histopathologic diagnosis of melanoma and related melanocytic lesions: Results from a testing study and a reference guide for providers

“… 1 Absent disease outcome data, no gold standard exists for the accuracy of histopathology. 2 We thus examined intraobserver reproducibility among board-certified or fellowship-trained dermatopathologists, the study design we believed a priori would capture the highest experimental reproducibility rates for melanocytic lesion diagnosis. We focused on the conceptual “common” pathway of melanomagenesis, namely nevus, dysplastic nevus, melanoma in situ (MIS), and invasive melanoma, reflecting low cumulative solar damage and representing the most frequently biopsied (∼80%) melanocytic lesions.…”