Nevus Doctor Clinical Decision Support for GPs

University Hospital of North Norway

Status: Completed

Conditions: Non-melanoma Skin Cancer; Melanoma (Skin); Actinic Keratoses

Treatments: Diagnostic Test: Nevus doctor clinical decision support

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03246412

2013/1793

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study investigates if a computer-based clinical decision support tool for skin cancer may improve the diagnostic accuracy of general practitioners (GPs). The aim of the program is to help GPs increase their diagnostic accuracy, in particular regarding the selection of suspicious skin lesions that need biopsy or referral to specialist health care for further assessment. Half of the physicians in the trial will have the clinical decision support tool available during consultations, while the other half has no such tool available. We hypothesize that general practitioners using the clinical decision support tool will have a higher number of correct classifications of skin lesions compared to doctors without the tool.

Full description

General practitioners (GPs) examine patients who attend a primary health care center. In the intervention group the computer-based clinical decision support tool "Nevus doctor" in a first step assists doctors in the process of selecting skin lesions that are suggestive of cancer. In the next step a given skin lesion is photographed using a dermatoscope attached to the lens of the camera. The dermatoscopic image is then processed by the computer program "Nevus doctor" and a preliminary result is presented. Finally the GP reviews the result and assesses the clinical significance of the output by using guidelines presented by "Nevus doctor". The patient is subsequently referred to a dermatologist and a complete skin examination is performed. The assessment of the dermatologist serves as the gold standard.

Enrollment: 35 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 120 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients concerned about one or several skin lesion(s)
• Patients with any other condition if doctor has observed a skin lesion suspicious for skin cancer (incl. actinic keratosis)

Exclusion criteria

• Patients not able to give consent

Trial design

Primary purpose: Diagnostic

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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35 participants in 2 patient groups

Nevus doctor clinical decision support

Experimental group

Description:

The GPs have access to the clinical decision support tool "Nevus doctor".

Treatment:

Diagnostic Test: Nevus doctor clinical decision support

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The GPs have no access to the clinical decision support tool "Nevus Doctor".