Dermoscopy in the Treatment Monitoring of Cutaneous Infectious Diseases: A Review

Dermoscopy represents a powerful, noninvasive tool for assessing both active infection and therapeutic resolution in a broad spectrum of infectious skin diseases. Despite the different causative agents (parasitic, viral, or fungal), it allows to identify characteristic pathogen‐associated structures at baseline and sequential morphological changes during treatment until restoration of normal skin, hair, or nail architecture. Importantly, dermoscopy frequently reveals subclinical residual disease not visible to the naked eye, preventing premature treatment cessation and reducing recurrence rates. Conversely, it also identifies postinflammatory or postinfectious changes that do not require further therapy, thereby improving patient management and avoiding unnecessary interventions. Videodermatoscopy, allowing high magnifications, further refines this approach, enabling the direct assessment of parasite viability and time‐resolved analysis of drug effects. The present article provides an overview of the dermoscopic features of the most frequent infectious dermatoses encountered in clinical practice: scabies, pediculosis and phthiriasis, dermatophytosis (tinea infections), onychomycosis, pityriasis versicolor, viral warts, demodicosis, and molluscum contagiosum. For each condition, the characteristic pretreatment dermoscopic patterns and the sequential changes observed during therapy, which often precede or outperform clinical examination in determining disease activity and treatment success, are summarized.