Clinicians who use a pigmented lesion assay (PLA) to rule out primary cutaneous melanoma use the test’s results to guide how they practice.
Researchers assessed the real-world utility to determine if the PLA changes clinical practice. The study contained 53 US dermatology offices and 90 providers. The patient median age was 48 years. Of those, 60.80% were women and 39.20% were men.
A total of 3418 pigmented skin lesions clinically suspicious for melanoma were assessed by PLA. Of these, 324 lesions (9.48%) were PLA(+) and 3094 (90.52%) were negative. Most of the PLA(+) lesions (97.5%) were surgically biopsied and PLA(-) lesions (99.9%) were only clinically monitored.
“These findings demonstrate that community-based clinicians who employ the PLA to improve pigmented lesion management use the test’s results to guide how they practice,” concluded the study authors. –Lisa Kuhns
Reference
Brouha B, Ferris LK, Skelsey MK, et al. Real-world utility of a non-invasive gene expression test to rule out primary cutaneous melanoma: a large US registry study. J Drugs Dermatol. 2020;19(3):257-262.
