Dermoscopy as a diagnostic tool in psoriasis

Received 15 August 2020 Revised 29 September 2020 Accepted 30 September 2020 Online 10 January 2021 Print 31 January 2021 Dermoscopy allows visualizing vascular and non-vascular structures and aids in making an accurate diagnosis of pathological skin lesions. The aim of the present study was to observe and report the dermoscopic patterns of psoriatic lesions and correlate the dermoscopic diagnosis with the clinico-histopathological diagnosis. This was a prospective, observational study conducted over a period of 18 months in 44 patients who presented with psoriasis to the outpatient clinic of our department. Psoriatic skin lesions were evaluated clinically and subjected to dermoscopy and histopathological examination and the resulting diagnoses were correlated to establish the diagnostic utility of dermoscopy in psoriasis. The resultant findings were predominantly vascular i.e. red globules (RG-75%), glomerular like vessels (GLV22.72%), red dots (RD-2.27%), in regular distribution (100%) and the non-vascular findings were white scales (93.18%) in a diffuse arrangement (79.54%) and a light red background (56.18%). A combination of these vascular and non-vascular features predicted psoriasis accurately and was found to be significant. A positive correlation between the clinico-dermoscopic-histopathological diagnosis was possible in 75% of the cases. In conclusion, dermoscopic examination is a good auxiliary to strengthen the clinical diagnosis of psoriasis and may help evade the necessity of a biopsy on further standardization of the dermoscopic features in literature. Corresponding author