The Investigation of Dermoscopy in Differential Diagnosis of Facial Actinic Keratosis

The study investigated the use of dermoscopy in diagnosing facial actinic keratosis (AK) in a Chinese population, comparing 43 AK lesions with 22 control lesions confirmed as other diseases. It found that specific dermoscopic features, such as red pseudonetwork, hair follicle openings surrounded by a white halo, and follicular plugs, were significantly more frequent in AK lesions. The combination of these features provided a sensitivity of 90.70% and specificity of 81.82% for diagnosing AK, with a Youden index of 0.73 and an 80.00% coincidence rate with pathological diagnosis. The study concluded that dermoscopy was valuable for the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of facial AK due to its ability to identify specific patterns.