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Volume 3 Issue 5 November (Supplement) 2015

Original Articles

COMPARISON OF DIAGNOSTIC EFFICACY OF SKIN LESIONS BY GENERAL PRACTITIONERS AND SKIN SPECIALISTS
Jayesh Shah, Devendra Parmar

Introduction: Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Australia: over 250 000 people are diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) and over 8000 with melanoma annually. This extremely high incidence makes skin cancer the most costly of all cancers to treat all over the world. Material & Method: The 100 GPs originally selected, By the use telephone listings, advertisements and the Internet, we identified 51 potentially suitable skin cancer clinics were identified. Those eligible for our study were contacted using the same method as for GPs. Results: Of the 1000 first excisions, 166 lesions (16.6%) were treated by specialists, the rest by GPs. Of the 800 first excisions, 23.5% did not have a clinical diagnosis. GPs were more likely to give a clinical diagnosis (77.4%) than specialists (71.6%; p<0.001). For BCC, PPV was significantly higher for specialists compared to GPs. For SCC, CN and seborrhoeic keratosis sensitivity was significantly higher for GPs than for specialists. Conclusion: There is value in identifying whether diagnosis and practice are different between specialist and GP populations when both provide services for the care of skin cancer as they do in Australia and in other countries.
Keywords: Skin Lesions, General Practioners, Skin Specialist.

Corresponding author: Dr. Jayesh Shah, Professor, Department of Skin, Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhuj, Gujarat      

This article may be cited as:  Shah J, Parmar D.  Comparison of Diagnostic Efficacy of Skin Lesions by General Practitioners and Skin Specialists. J Adv Med Dent Scie Res 2015;3(5):S9-S11.

 
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