Use of Smartphones in Telemedicine: Comparative Study Between Standard and Teledermatological Evaluation of High-Complex Care Hospital Inpatients

The document presents a study comparing the reliability of low-cost videomicroscopes (VMs) to standard videodermatoscopy (VD) for the evaluation of hair and scalp disorders, specifically in the differential diagnosis of hair loss. The study included 25 patients with various types of hair loss and used two different low-cost VMs and standard VD to examine trichoscopic features. The images obtained were evaluated by three blinded dermatologists. The results showed that while the low-cost VMs correctly identified hair shaft alterations, they had limitations in visualizing certain follicular and perifollicular features due to low color quality and resolution. The conclusion drawn from the study is that low-cost VMs may not be reliable for scalp trichoscopy without further individual controlled noninferiority trials. No commercial support was identified for this study.