A randomised trial of skin photography as an aid to screening XXXX in older males.

@entity1 @entity1489 @entity320 @entity272
OBJECTIVES: We have previously shown that photographs assist in detection of change in @entity272 and designed the present randomised population based trial to assess the feasibility of photographs as an aid to management of @entity1489 in older @entity1 . SETTING: 1899 @entity1 over fifty, identified from the electoral roll in two regions in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, were invited by mail to participate. METHODS: A total of 973 of 1037 respondents were photographed and randomised into intervention ( @entity1 given their photographs) or control groups (photographs withheld by investigators). At one and two years from the time of photography, all @entity1 were advised to see their primary care practitioner for a skin examination. Those in the intervention group were examined with their photographs and those in the control group without their photographs. RESULTS: The results indicated that the practitioners were more likely to leave suspicious lesions in place for follow up observation (37% v 29%) (p=0.006) and less likely to excise benign non pigmented lesions (20 v 32%). There was little difference in excision rates for benign pigmented lesions (21% v 23%). Lesions excised were more likely to be @entity1489 (58% v 42%) from @entity1 who had photographs compared to those without photographs (p=0.005). The use of skin photography resulted in a substantial savings due to the reduced excision of benign lesions. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that it would be feasible to conduct a large scale randomised trial to evaluate the value of photography in early detection of @entity320 and that such a trial could be cost effective due to the reduced excision of benign @entity272 .
