Can an inexpensive light-emitting diode loupe magnification device be as good as an expensive dermatoscope?

Dermoscopy is an invaluable technique used in both primary and secondary care to provide clinical information for diagnosis of skin disorders. Access to dermatoscopes is limited because of their high cost that limits clinicians at early levels of training, as well as those in low-resource settings, from developing the essential skills of dermoscopy. Previous solutions that have been proposed to address this issue have failed to demonstrate sufficient evidence for their use as an alternative compared with the gold standard of a dermatoscope, making it difficult to justify adoption of such solutions.

To assess the noninferiority of an inexpensive light-emitting diode (LED) loupe magnification device compared with a nonpolarized dermatoscope.

This study looked at 100 paired photographs of lesions taken with both devices and asked 26 clinicians to categorize the lesions.

Considering the consistency of the responses, this study confirmed noninferiority of the inexpensive LED loupe magnification device. Our results showed that the LED loupe magnification device is noninferior within a 25% margin and performs 82% as well as a nonpolarized dermatoscope.

Our findings encourage the implementation of use of the cheaper LED loupe magnification device both in the early stages of medical training and in settings where expensive dermatoscopes are not available.