1. Validity of clinical diagnosis in dermatology.
- Author
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Rodríguez Caravaca G, Mosquera González M, Villar Del Campo MC, López Estebaranz JL, Pinedo Moraleda F, and De La Torre Escuredo B
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Bowen's Disease diagnosis, Carcinoma, Basal Cell diagnosis, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Nevus, Pigmented diagnosis, Prevalence, Reproducibility of Results, Sensitivity and Specificity, Skin Diseases epidemiology, Skin Diseases pathology, Skin Neoplasms diagnosis, Spain epidemiology, Young Adult, Skin Diseases diagnosis
- Abstract
Objective: We evaluated the accuracy of the clinical diagnostic process performed by dermatologists., Material and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study, based on a retrospective search of data at a dermatology outpatient department. Fifteen skin diseases were selected. A group of patients with those diseases at their first outpatient visit and a further histopathological study were included. The accuracy of any given clinical diagnosis was studied taking the histopathological diagnosis as the gold standard. Validity indices were calculated., Results: We studied 2188 patients. Skin diseases were more prevalent among women (p < 0.05). While the clinical diagnostic process displayed a high level of validity in melanocytic naevi and basal cell carcinoma, a poor level was nevertheless observed for Bowen's disease (sensitivity 22.8%, specificity 96.5%). The most frequent sites of appearance of dermatological problems were face and trunk., Conclusions: Evaluation of diagnosis in pathologies having an available "gold standard" enables the accuracy of clinical diagnoses to be verified. The validity of clinical diagnosis was high.
- Published
- 2011