Reflectance confocal microscopy

The ultimate goal of early melanoma diagnosis is the detection of all melanomas, while minimizing the number of excisions of nevi. To achieve this goal requires the clinician to not only be able to identify specific melanoma features but to also recognize the distinct aspects of nevi. To complicate the matter, several pigmented and nonpigmented lesions are in differential diagnosis with melanoma. Besides melanoma diagnosis, clinicians deal with the overwhelming number of nonmelanoma skin cancer (i.e., basal cell carcinoma) for which a clear-cut diagnosis is warranted as well as a good subtype differentiation to choose the most appropriate treatment.