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Introduction & Aim: Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) is the most frequent of all skin cancers in the white population. Dermoscopy is a method that improves diagnosis in pigmented and non-pigmented skin lesions, allowing early diagnosis, especially of incipient lesions. The classical dermoscopy algorithm for the diagnosis of BCC includes lack of pigment network and the presence of at least one of the following criteria: ulceration, maple-leaf like structure, blue-gray globules, blue-ovoid nests, arborizing vessels and spoke-wheel structures. The non-classical dermoscopic features of BCC include some criteria more frequently seen in superficial BCC such as pink-white areas, concentric structures, multiple erosions, multiple in-focus blue-gray dots and fine vessels. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the dermoscopic criteria of pigmented and non-pigmented BCC, also to investigate the incidence of these criteria in different clinical and histopathological subtypes.
Method: We undertook a retrospective study 171 patients with the preliminary diagnoses of BCC, without knowledge of the dermopathological diagnoses.
Result & Conclusion: Based on the data of our study we concluded that the specific morphologic criteria used by Menzies et al valuable mainly for non-pigmented Basal Cell Carcinoma, can also be seen in other clinical and histopathological subtypes of BCC. Blue globules, mapple leaf like pattern, blue-gray ovoid nests and blue-grey areas were more commonly seen in pigmented BCC. Vascular structures and ulceration were observed in all dermato pathological subtypes but except fibrosing BCC.
