Background: Patients with multiple actinic keratosis (AK), have pre-neosplastic abnormalities, constituting the sites of new tumors, this region is called the cancerization field. Due to the risk of malignant transformation, rigorous evaluation, follow-up, and treatment of the cancerization field is proposed. Recently, non-invasive diagnostic technologies such as confocal reflectance microscopy (RCM), detect AK, intraepithelial carcinomas (IEC), and SCC, without the need of repeated biopsies. There are few reports of the progression of AK assessed by dermatoscopy and RCM concomitantly.
Objectives: Define morphological patterns and clinical applicability of dermatoscopy and MCR examinations of the AK lesions and their degrees of progression to IEC and SCC.
Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study of dermatoscopy and RCM examinations was performed in 30 patients with histopathological diagnosis of AK (20), IEC (6), and SCC (4).
Results: In the comparative analysis of the dermatoscopic features, erythema was present in 100% of the lesions, the red pseudo-network in 75% of the AK (P=0.007), and linear and irregular vessels in 90% of the lesions of IEC/SCC. In the RCM of AK, the most striking finding was the presence of atypical honeycomb in the spinous layer, but typical in the granular layer. While the IEC/SCC group presented irregular epidermal architecture and atypical honeycomb in all epider-mal layers, it also showed a higher prevalence of individual corneocytes and nucleated cells, cellular pleomorphism, and nuclear atypia in the dermal papillae, irregular vessels within papilla, and cells with bright edges and dark central nuclei in the dermis.
Conclusion: Dermoscopy and RCM may be considered as auxiliary methods for assessing lesions resulting from ke-ratinocyte atypia. The results of this study are consistent with published studies and it was possible to propose, with literature support, a model of progression of AK to IEC and SCC. J Drugs Dermatol. 2022;21(3):259-268. doi:10.36849/JDD.5086.