A.L.K. Chia , B. Dutta , A. Lim , S. Shumack
Introduction: Melanoma is the fourth most common registrable cancer in Australia. The number needed to treat (NNT) is an important quantifi able measure, telling us the number of patients that we need to treat in order to achieve one positive outcome. We sought to derive the NNT for melanoma for a representative group of Australian dermatologists.
Method: A retrospective audit of melanoma diagnoses was
undertaken for a group of 35 Australian dermatologists.
This was compared with the histological diagnoses. All
reports over a one year period were audited.
Results: 195 of the 686 clinically suspicious lesions were histologically confi rmed as melanoma. Therefore, the NNT for histological referrals for melanoma is four for this group of dermatologists. In addition, we found that the sensitivity for the diagnosis of melanoma was 89.1%, if we consider all lesions that are possibly clinically suspicious of melanoma. Our results suggest that the clinical diagnosis of melanoma may not be diffi cult for lesions that are clinically characteristic.