Dermoscopy research--an update

Dermoscopy increases the clinician's diagnostic accuracy by as much as 30% over that of unaided visual clinical inspection alone and has been confirmed in 3 separate evidence-based publications using a meta-analysis of the literature. It can be viewed as an in vivo bridge between clinical morphology and histopathology. This "bridge" has provided clinician researchers with many new insights into morphology and tumor biology. In this article, we provide the reader with an overview of the different aspects of dermoscopy as a research tool. We cover different aspects, such as the new equipment, new structures, the importance of blood vessels, etc.