RECOGNITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF CLINICALLY DYSPLASTIC NEVI FROM PHOTOGRAPHS - A STUDY OF INTEROBSERVER VARIATION

The recognition of dysplastic nevi from photographs can aid in populat ion surveys of nevi and in epidemiological studies of melanoma risk. T he reproducibility of techniques for recognizing nevi as dysplastic or for scoring them according to the degree of dysplasia has not been me asured. Using photographs of 300 nevi taken in the course of a case-co ntrol study of melanoma, we assessed the agreement among six clinician s in independently categorizing nevi as dysplastic and in grading the degree of dysplasia. On average, reviewers agreed with each other 77% of the time in classifying a nevus as dysplastic or normal. Pairwise a greement within one point on a six-point scale occurred 87% of the tim e on average. These results suggest that criteria for recognizing nevi as clinically dysplastic from photographs can be applied reproducibly .