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Cancers
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Advances in Dermoscopy for Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer
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Advances in Dermoscopy for Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

A Special Issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694) belonging to the section "Cancer Causes, Screening and Diagnosis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 1309

Editors

Prof. Dr. Clay J. Cockerell

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
2. Lake Granbury Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Interests: dermatopathology; dermatology; clinicopathologic correlation; medical education
Dr. Warren Chan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Reveal Research Institute, Frisco, TX, USA
Interests: artificial intelligence; medical dermatology; bioinformatics; precision oncology
Dr. Jade Conway

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Reveal Research Institute, Dallas, TX, USA
Interests: dermatology research; medical education; patient engagement; nail disease
Dr. Iman Ali

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Texas Health Resources Presbyterian Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA
Interests: medical dermatology; dermoscopy; cutaneous oncology; autoimmune skin disease; medical education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Dermoscopy has become a cornerstone in the diagnosis and management of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers, with clear evidence that it improves diagnostic accuracy and facilitates earlier detection. Current advances are extending its utility: refined diagnostic criteria, site-specific adaptations for challenging anatomic regions, and integration with non-invasive imaging methods such as reflectance confocal microscopy and optical coherence tomography. The rapid development of artificial intelligence and the increasing use of teledermoscopy and smartphone-based tools are also reshaping how dermoscopy is practiced and accessed.

This Special Issue will provide an up-to-date synthesis of these developments, emphasizing their relevance to clinical care and their role in the evolving landscape of skin cancer diagnosis.

Proposed Chapter Topics

  1. Dermoscopy for Melanoma—current diagnostic criteria, emerging features, and the role of digital monitoring in early detection.
  2. Dermoscopy for Non-Melanoma Skin Cancers—characteristic patterns in basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and related variants.
  3. Site-Specific Dermoscopy—adaptations for acral, facial, mucosal, and nail unit lesions where morphology differs from conventional patterns.
  4. Multimodal Imaging Integration—the combined use of dermoscopy with reflectance confocal microscopy, optical coherence tomography, teledermoscopy, and smartphone-based tools.
  5. Dermoscopy and Artificial Intelligence—advances in AI for dermoscopic image analysis and implications for clinical workflows and access to care.

Prof. Dr. Clay J. Cockerell
Dr. Warren Chan
Dr. Jade Conway
Dr. Iman Ali
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • dermoscopy
  • skin cancer
  • diagnosis
  • artificial intelligence
  • multimodal imaging
  • teledermoscopy

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 156 KB  
Editorial
Man, Machine, or Both? What Should Count as an Advance in Dermoscopy
by Dana N. Pham, Warren H. Chan, Jade Conway, Iman Ali and Clay J. Cockerell
Cancers 2026, 18(17), 2742; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers18172742 - 24 Aug 2026
Viewed by 255
Abstract
New technologies in dermoscopy are often judged by whether they outperform clinicians on selected images. This Editorial argues that a meaningful advance should instead improve care in real clinical settings. Evidence from artificial intelligence, reflectance confocal microscopy, site-specific dermoscopy, and teledermoscopy suggests that [...] Read more.
New technologies in dermoscopy are often judged by whether they outperform clinicians on selected images. This Editorial argues that a meaningful advance should instead improve care in real clinical settings. Evidence from artificial intelligence, reflectance confocal microscopy, site-specific dermoscopy, and teledermoscopy suggests that the greatest gains occur when technology is integrated with trained clinical judgment, validated prospectively, tested across skin types and anatomical sites, and evaluated for access and patient-relevant outcomes. The central question is not whether a person or machine performs better alone, but whether the combination helps identify skin cancer earlier while avoiding unnecessary biopsies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Dermoscopy for Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 8197 KB  
Article
Exploratory Multimodal Analysis of Vascular Changes in Basal Cell Carcinoma Before and After Topical Imiquimod Therapy Using Dermoscopy and Non-Invasive Imaging
by Oliver Mayer, Hanna Wirsching, Sophia Schlingmann, Deborah Winkler, Lena Schemet, Tobias Kaps, Julia Welzel and Sandra Schuh
Cancers 2026, 18(13), 2153; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers18132153 - 4 Jul 2026
Viewed by 538
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Topical imiquimod is an established non-invasive treatment for superficial basal cell carcinoma (sBCC). However, data on treatment-associated changes in tumor microvascularization remain limited. This study investigated vascular changes before and after imiquimod therapy using multimodal non-invasive imaging. Methods: In this single-center, prospective [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Topical imiquimod is an established non-invasive treatment for superficial basal cell carcinoma (sBCC). However, data on treatment-associated changes in tumor microvascularization remain limited. This study investigated vascular changes before and after imiquimod therapy using multimodal non-invasive imaging. Methods: In this single-center, prospective observational study, 31 basal cell carcinomas in 20 patients were examined before and 12–16 weeks after topical imiquimod therapy (5%, five times weekly for six weeks) using dermoscopy, dynamic optical coherence tomography (D-OCT), and line-field confocal optical coherence tomography (LC-OCT). Analyses were performed as paired before-and-after comparisons. While approved for sBCC, a small number of thin nodular and infiltrative BCCs were included exploratorily; subgroup analyses were not powered. Results: Dermoscopy showed a nominally significant shift toward smaller vessel diameter categories after therapy (ATS = 8.183, df = 1, p = 0.004). D-OCT-derived parameters (vessel density, vessel diameter, and depth of the vascular plexus) did not show nominally significant changes. LC-OCT showed nominally lower apparent intratumoral flow scores (ATS = 13.285, df = 1, p < 0.001), reduced occurrence of vessel-wall-associated intraluminal structures showing a rolling-like motion pattern (86.7% before treatment versus 33.3% after treatment; ATS = 13.357; df = 1, p < 0.001), and a reduction in maximum vessel diameter (ATS = 6.110, df = 1, p = 0.013). The primary LC-OCT inferential analyses were performed at the lesion level without adjustment for within-patient clustering and should therefore be interpreted as exploratory. An additional patient-cluster-adjusted paired change-score sensitivity analysis for LC-OCT maximum vessel diameter yielded a directionally consistent estimate (−17.81 µm; 95% CI: −34.40 to −1.23; p = 0.037). The primary exploratory endpoints were LC-OCT–based apparent intratumoral flow and maximum vessel diameter; secondary endpoints included dermoscopic and D-OCT–based vascular parameters. In the exploratory response-stratified analysis, the change in LC-OCT-based maximum vessel diameter did not differ significantly among the assigned response groups (Kruskal–Wallis H = 3.870, df = 2, raw p = 0.144; BH-adjusted p = 0.753). Conclusions: LC-OCT detected several exploratory vascular changes between the pre-treatment examination and follow-up and may provide complementary information for the non-invasive assessment of BCC after imiquimod therapy. Given the exploratory design, limited sample size, and lack of systematic histological confirmation, these findings are hypothesis-generating and require validation in larger prospective studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Dermoscopy for Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer)
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