Assessing the efficacy of a 10-point referral tool in the triaging of pigmented lesions to a Dermatology clinic *

摘要

Dear Editor,Worldwide the incidence of melanoma is increasing faster than of any other cancer. Early detection is critical in reducing mortality and morbidity, and therefore general practitioners (GPs) need to be able to screen effectively between benign and suspicious lesions.1, 2 Interventions that improve the accuracy of secondary care triaging may be used to prioritize patients with malignant lesions and help combat the hindrances of long waiting times. GPs referring suspected melanomas to our department were asked to use a pro forma with an integrated 10-point Likert scoring tool and grade the likelihood of lesions being melanomas (1 least likely, 10 most likely). Based on results from a previous pilot study in our department, all patients referred with a score ≥4 were triaged to an urgent appointment and those with a score of ≤3 to a soon appointment. Our aim was to assess the usefulness of this proforma in discriminating between malignant melanomas (MM) and other pigmented lesions (NM)