Application of fluorescence diagnosis in skin tumors

Fluorescence diagnosis is a convenient, non-invasive and real-time diagnostic tool which has been applied to detect early-stage superficial tumors. As far as skin tumors are concerned, it can be used for the auxiliary diagnosis of nonpigmented skin tumors, delineation of lesions before Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS), efficacy evaluation and posttreatment follow up. The intensity of fluorescence and accuracy of fluorescence diagnosis are influenced by the type of photosensitizers, intensity of excitation light, type, size and location of lesions, status of perilesional skin, and so on. There have been multiple studies on the efficiency of fluorescence diagnosis in skin tumors, but the results are controversial, and large-scale case-control studies are required to further evaluate it. Key words: Skin neoplasms; Spectrometry, fluorescence; Diagnosis; Photosensitizing agents; Root cause analysis