A case of a superficial spreading melanoma in situ diagnosed via digital dermoscopic monitoring with high dynamic range conversion

A 48-year-old woman presented with a 3 mm, pigmented macule at her first visit to our clinic. The macule, which showed complete symmetry and a typical network, was tentatively diagnosed as a Clark nevus; a 6-month follow-up was recommended, and the patient returned 7 months later. At the second visit, the lesion had enlarged to a diameter of 5 mm, and dermoscopy revealed that it had maintained its typical pigment network. At this point, evidence-based monitoring would have led to excision but the decision was made to continue monitoring. Owing to poor compliance, the patient went another 2 years without follow-up. When we assess small lesions, such as this, the usefulness of dermoscopy is apparent. Additionally, we examined the benefits and drawbacks of high dynamic range (HDR) conversion of the dermoscopy images and their helpfulness for inspecting small lesions. Although the delicate structures present in the lesion can be recognized by a dermoscopy expert and HDR image conversion has a capacity to highlight important structures, there is also a risk that HDR image conversion may mask some of the structural changes. However, a comparison of the original dermoscopy images with the HDR-converted images provides newly trained dermoscopists the opportunity to recognize new findings and to distinguish the differences in the findings between both the types of images. Therefore, such comparisons might be useful for obtaining an accurate diagnosis by using dermoscopy and HDR image conversion.