Dermoscopy of pigmented lichen planus lesions

In the present study we investigated whether dermoscopy can provide data that are useful for assessing and monitoring patients with pigmented lichen planus. We followed 50 clinically hyperpigmented lesions in 10 patients with biopsy‐proven lichen planus (six women and four men, aged 19–65 years; mean age, 35.1 years), for at least 1.5 years, or until the lesions resolved. Clinically nonpigmented lesions were not included in the study. All lesions were studied with the hand‐held dermoscope (Delta 10; Heine Optotechnik, Germany, with a fixed magnification of × 10), after being covered with olive oil. Lesions were also photographed using Dermaphot photographic equipment (Heine Optotechnik). Dermoscopic pigmented structures were defined according to the Consensus Meeting on terminology in surface microscopy.1 Statistical analysis was performed by using the Chi‐square test. The intra‐observer reproducibility of the scoring methods was assessed by the Kappa statistic (K), as a measure of chance corrected agreement,2 by re‐evaluation of a stored test set after 6 months and without access to any archival information.