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Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study

Background: To confirm the suspicion of scabies, dermatologists have one pathognomonic sign, “the tunnel” through which Sarcoptes scabiei digs into the epidermis. Light microscopy is considered the most reliable procedure, but it is time-consuming and operator-dependent. Recently, dermoscopy has gre...

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Autor principal: Scanni, Gaetano
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9785351/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548678
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7120422
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author Scanni, Gaetano
author_facet Scanni, Gaetano
author_sort Scanni, Gaetano
collection PubMed
description Background: To confirm the suspicion of scabies, dermatologists have one pathognomonic sign, “the tunnel” through which Sarcoptes scabiei digs into the epidermis. Light microscopy is considered the most reliable procedure, but it is time-consuming and operator-dependent. Recently, dermoscopy has greatly improved the chances of recognizing mite in situ, but it is still linked to the examiner’s experience and to the magnification capability of the device used. Methods: This article, based on a case-series study, describes a novel diagnostic path, which uses an ultraviolet LED source at 365 nm and a digital camera for the evaluation of lesions that raise the suspicion of scabies. Results: The gallery emits a naked-eye-visible wavy bluish-white linear luminescence, better than that of any standard lighting. UVA light is also able to identify Sarcoptes scabiei as a white or green point-shaped area. This sign can only be appreciated by enlarging its picture to full frame on a common PC monitor. Conclusions: Ultraviolet light (365 nm) seems to offer help in the diagnosis of scabies because it saves time compared with light microscopy and because it does not require contact with the patient’s skin, as in dermoscopy. Although examiner experience remains an important factor, it is easily compensated by procedural simplicity, the cost of the devices and, especially, by the clarity of the results, even in non-specific lesions.
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spelling pubmed-97853512022-12-24 Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study Scanni, Gaetano Trop Med Infect Dis Article Background: To confirm the suspicion of scabies, dermatologists have one pathognomonic sign, “the tunnel” through which Sarcoptes scabiei digs into the epidermis. Light microscopy is considered the most reliable procedure, but it is time-consuming and operator-dependent. Recently, dermoscopy has greatly improved the chances of recognizing mite in situ, but it is still linked to the examiner’s experience and to the magnification capability of the device used. Methods: This article, based on a case-series study, describes a novel diagnostic path, which uses an ultraviolet LED source at 365 nm and a digital camera for the evaluation of lesions that raise the suspicion of scabies. Results: The gallery emits a naked-eye-visible wavy bluish-white linear luminescence, better than that of any standard lighting. UVA light is also able to identify Sarcoptes scabiei as a white or green point-shaped area. This sign can only be appreciated by enlarging its picture to full frame on a common PC monitor. Conclusions: Ultraviolet light (365 nm) seems to offer help in the diagnosis of scabies because it saves time compared with light microscopy and because it does not require contact with the patient’s skin, as in dermoscopy. Although examiner experience remains an important factor, it is easily compensated by procedural simplicity, the cost of the devices and, especially, by the clarity of the results, even in non-specific lesions. MDPI 2022-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9785351/ /pubmed/36548678 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7120422 Text en © 2022 by the author. 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 Article
Scanni, Gaetano
Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title_full Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title_fullStr Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title_full_unstemmed Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title_short Facilitations in the Clinical Diagnosis of Human Scabies through the Use of Ultraviolet Light (UV-Scab Scanning): A Case-Series Study
title_sort facilitations in the clinical diagnosis of human scabies through the use of ultraviolet light (uv-scab scanning): a case-series study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9785351/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548678
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7120422
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