[Dermatoscopic diagnosis of cutaneous malignant melanoma. Secondary prophylaxis]

During the last four decades the incidence of malignant melanoma has increased seven fold. Clinically, it is often difficult to distinguish malignant melanoma from a benign naevus. The macroscopic clinical ABCD rule and the Glasgow 7-point checklist are didactically helpful, but inaccurate with many false positive and negative diagnoses. Dermatoscopy performed by a trained physician has increased the diagnostic accuracy to a sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 80% (meta-analysis of 11 studies). The dermatoscopic ABCD rule and the Risk Stratification method (RS) are reviewed.