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Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology
Malignant melanoma is a cutaneous malignancy resulting from the uncontrolled proliferation of melanocytes and poses a challenge diagnostically because neoplastic lesions can mimic benign lesions, which are much more common in the population. Doctors, when they suspect the presence of melanoma, arran...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10047858/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36980340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13061033 |
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author | Marrone, Maricla Caterino, Cristina Musci, Gianluca Cazzato, Gerardo Ingravallo, Giuseppe Lupo, Carmelo Casatta, Nadia Stellacci, Alessandra Armenio, Andrea |
author_facet | Marrone, Maricla Caterino, Cristina Musci, Gianluca Cazzato, Gerardo Ingravallo, Giuseppe Lupo, Carmelo Casatta, Nadia Stellacci, Alessandra Armenio, Andrea |
author_sort | Marrone, Maricla |
collection | PubMed |
description | Malignant melanoma is a cutaneous malignancy resulting from the uncontrolled proliferation of melanocytes and poses a challenge diagnostically because neoplastic lesions can mimic benign lesions, which are much more common in the population. Doctors, when they suspect the presence of melanoma, arrange for its removal and the performance of a histological examination to ascertain its diagnosis; in cases where the dermatoscopic examination is indicative of benignity, however, after the lesion is removed, histological examination is not always performed, a very dangerous occurrence and a harbinger of further medico-legal problems. The authors present a court litigation case of an “alleged” failure to diagnose malignant melanoma in a patient who died of brain metastases from melanoma in the absence of a certain location of the primary tumor: the physician who had removed a benign lesion a few months earlier was sued, and only thanks to the presence of photographic documentation was the health care provider able to prove his extraneousness. The aim of this paper is to formulate a proposal for a dermatological protocol to be followed in cases of excisions of benign skin lesions with a twofold purpose: on the one hand, to be able to prove, in a judicial context, the right action on the part of the sanitarians; on the other hand, to avoid the rise of so-called “defensive medicine”. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10047858 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100478582023-03-29 Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology Marrone, Maricla Caterino, Cristina Musci, Gianluca Cazzato, Gerardo Ingravallo, Giuseppe Lupo, Carmelo Casatta, Nadia Stellacci, Alessandra Armenio, Andrea Diagnostics (Basel) Interesting Images Malignant melanoma is a cutaneous malignancy resulting from the uncontrolled proliferation of melanocytes and poses a challenge diagnostically because neoplastic lesions can mimic benign lesions, which are much more common in the population. Doctors, when they suspect the presence of melanoma, arrange for its removal and the performance of a histological examination to ascertain its diagnosis; in cases where the dermatoscopic examination is indicative of benignity, however, after the lesion is removed, histological examination is not always performed, a very dangerous occurrence and a harbinger of further medico-legal problems. The authors present a court litigation case of an “alleged” failure to diagnose malignant melanoma in a patient who died of brain metastases from melanoma in the absence of a certain location of the primary tumor: the physician who had removed a benign lesion a few months earlier was sued, and only thanks to the presence of photographic documentation was the health care provider able to prove his extraneousness. The aim of this paper is to formulate a proposal for a dermatological protocol to be followed in cases of excisions of benign skin lesions with a twofold purpose: on the one hand, to be able to prove, in a judicial context, the right action on the part of the sanitarians; on the other hand, to avoid the rise of so-called “defensive medicine”. MDPI 2023-03-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10047858/ /pubmed/36980340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13061033 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Interesting Images Marrone, Maricla Caterino, Cristina Musci, Gianluca Cazzato, Gerardo Ingravallo, Giuseppe Lupo, Carmelo Casatta, Nadia Stellacci, Alessandra Armenio, Andrea Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title | Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title_full | Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title_fullStr | Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title_full_unstemmed | Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title_short | Photography as the Sole Means of Proof: Medical Liability in Dermatology |
title_sort | photography as the sole means of proof: medical liability in dermatology |
topic | Interesting Images |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10047858/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36980340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13061033 |
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