Impact of Diagnostic Confidence, Perceived Difficulty, and Clinical Experience in Facial Melanoma Detection: Results from a European Multicentric Teledermoscopic Study

Background: Diagnosing facial melanoma, specifically lentigo maligna (LM) and lentigo maligna melanoma (LMM), is a daily clinical challenge, particularly for small or traumatized lesions. LM and LMM are part of the broader group of atypical pigmented facial lesions (aPFLs), which also includes benign look-alikes such as solar lentigo (SL), atypical nevi (AN), seborrheic keratosis (SK), and seborrheic-lichenoid keratosis (SLK), as well as pigmented actinic keratosis (PAK), a potentially premalignant keratinocytic lesion. Standard dermoscopy with handheld devices is the most widely used diagnostic tool in dermatology, but its accuracy heavily depends on the clinician’s experience and the perceived difficulty of the case. As a result, many benign aPFLs are excised for histological analysis, often leading to aesthetic concerns. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) can reduce the need for biopsies, but it is limited to specialized centers and requires skilled operators. Aims: This study aimed to assess the impact of personal skill, diagnostic confidence, and perceived difficulty on the diagnostic accuracy and management in the differential dermoscopic diagnosis of aPFLs. Methods: A total of 1197 aPFLs dermoscopic images were examined on a teledermoscopic web platform by 155 dermatologists and residents with 4 skill levels (<1, 1–4, 5–8, >8 years). They were asked to give a diagnosis, to estimate their confidence and rate the case, and choose a management strategy: “follow-up”, “RCM” or “biopsy”. Diagnostic accuracy was examined according to the personal skill level, confidence level, and rating in three settings: (I) all seven diagnoses, (II) LM vs. PAK vs. fully benign aPFLs, (III) malignant vs benign aPFLs. The same analyses were performed for management decisions. Results: The diagnostic confidence has a certain impact on the diagnostic accuracy, both in terms of multi-class diagnosis of six aPFLs in diagnostic (setting 1) and in benign vs malignant (setting 3) or benign vs. malignant/premalignant discrimination (setting 2). The perceived difficulty influences the management of benign lesions, with easy ratings predominantly matching with “follow-up” decision in benign cases, but not that of malignant lesions assigned to “biopsy”. The experience level had an impact on the perception of the number of real easy cases and had no to minimal impact on the average diagnostic accuracy of aPFLs. It, however, has an impact on the management strategy and specifically in terms of error reduction, namely the lowest rates of missed malignant cases after 8 years of experience and the lowest rates of inappropriate biopsies of benign lesions after 1 year of experience. Conclusions: The noninvasive diagnosis and management of aPFLs rest on a daily challenge. Highlighting which specific subgroups of lesions need attention and second-level examination (RCM) or biopsy can help detect early malignant cases, and, in parallel, reduce the rate of unnecessary removal of benign lesions.