General practitioner screening for melanoma: Sensitivity, specificity, and effect of training

Abstract

Objective - To measure the performance of trained and untrained general practitioners (GPs) in screening men and women aged 50 or more for melanomas. Methods - GPs trained in melanoma diagnosis, untrained GPs, and skin cancer specialists examined groups of volunteers, each of which included a small number of subjects with prediagnosed suspicious pigmented lesions (SPLs) that were subsequently excised for histopathological examination. Results - Trained and untrained GPs achieved mean sensitivities of 0.73 and 0.71, and mean predictive values of 0.40 and 0.37, respectively, for the detection of prediagnosed SPLs. When the SPLs had been excised and examined histopathologically, reanalysis show..