Skin Cancer Blog

How can you differentiate between types of flat facial lesions to ensure you don’t miss a malignancy? In this latest skin cancer update video, Professor Giuseppe Argenziano describes melanoma, solar lentigo and pigmented actinic keratosis on the face, including their clinical and dermoscopic features with real patient examples, and provides his top five tips for recognising these lesions in your practice.

For further information on this topic, you may be interested to learn more about the HealthCert Professional Diploma program in Dermoscopy, providing tailored medical dermoscopy training online for general practitioners.

“Facial melanoma is one of the top three most difficult melanomas,” says Prof Argenziano. He explains why melanoma on the face can often be challenging to recognise and explains the clinical and dermoscopic clues for reaching a diagnosis, with real patient examples from his own practice and studies.

Watch the full video now:

In the video, he says that patients usually present with facial lesions due to cosmetic reasons rather than due to concerns about skin cancer. They usually want their face lesion removed because it affects their appearance and self-esteem, which is why these lesions are sometimes quite large by the time a medical practitioner sees them.

Prof Argenziano describes the age demographics that facial melanoma can impact, and suggests “forgetting the age of the patient”. There is a misconception that facial melanoma mostly affects older patients, but this is not true.

He takes us through a series of real patient cases to exemplify the clinical and dermoscopic criteria for flat facial lesions.

Early facial lesions often don’t show malignant criteria, so it can be important to look for non-melanoma features instead. Prof Argenziano will share the six features in part two, coming next month. Stay tuned!

See all this and much more in the full video above!

For further information on this topic, you may be interested to learn more about the HealthCert Professional Diploma program in Dermoscopy, providing tailored medical dermoscopy training online for general practitioners.

More skin cancer updates from Professor Giuseppe Argenziano:

• Common benign lesions | Part 1
• Common benign lesions | Part 2

---

Prof Giuseppe Argenziano is Professor and Head of the Dermatology Unit at the University of Campania, Naples, Italy; Co-founder and past president of the International Dermoscopy Society; and Editor-in-Chief of Dermatology Practical and Conceptual Journal. His main research field is dermato-oncology, authoring numerous scientific articles and books concerning dermoscopy, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer. As coordinator of the Melanoma Unit at the Campania University, he has established a successful tertiary, multidisciplinary, referral center particularly devoted to the diagnosis and management of patients with melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer.

Over the past 25 years, Prof Argenziano has supervised over 500 foreign and Italian residents in dermatology, established scientific collaborations with 1500+ colleagues from more than 50 nations, and organised more than 500 national and international didactic meetings, courses and conferences (such as the Consensus Net Meeting on Dermoscopy and the First Congress of the International Dermoscopy Society).

Prof Argenziano has authored more than 650 full scientific articles and produced landmark primary publications and books in the field of melanoma and dermoscopy. Over the past 25 years he has been invited as speaker and/or chairman in more than 500 national and international conferences in the field of dermatology. His combined publications have received a sum total of 15.250+ citations with an h-index value of 61 (Scopus 2020).