Clinical Characteristics of Actinic Keratosis Associated with the Risk of Progression to Invasive Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review

Background: Actinic keratosis (AK) is one of the most common lesions on chronically sun-damaged skin that has the risk of progression to invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). With the possibilities of using digital technologies for following-up skin lesions and their increased use in the past few decades, our objective was to update the review by Quaedvlieg et al., 2006, and to review prospective studies from 2005 onwards to identify the clinical characteristics of AK that later progressed to SCC. Methods: The PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect databases were searched for relevant articles. The search had the following criteria: English language, human subjects and year from 2005 onwards. The study protocol was registered in the Prospero database with the record number CRD42020200429 and followed the PRISMA guidelines. The risk-of-bias assessment was performed using the QUIPS tool. Results: From the 5361 studies screened, 105 reports were evaluated for eligibility, and 2 articles with 621 patients were included. The main AK types associated with the development of SCC were found to be baseline AK, also known as a long-standing AK, and merging AK, also called an “AK patch”.