Dermatology: Practical and Conceptual Editorial | Dermatol Pract Concept 2021;11(1):e2021084 1 Dermatology Practical & Conceptual It is not easy to precisely define when dermoscopy was “invented.” The first description of the idea of in-vivo direct skin microscopy goes back to 1950 when Leon Goldman applied it to detect cutaneous filariae [1]. As he extended his research to the in-vivo microscopic examination of nevi, he provided the first pieces of evidence on the potential of this method to uncover clinically invisible morphologic structures of skin tumors [2]. Twenty years later, in 1970, Rona MacKie provided the first description of the microscopic surface patterns of nevi, melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and angioma [3]. In 1980, Fritsch and Pechlaner improved the technique and suggested that it had the potential of improving the clinical discrimi- nation between benign and malignant skin neoplasms [4]. In the late 1980s the first efforts of systematically cate- gorizing the observed features of lesions and assessing their diagnostic significance were published. Parameters to be evaluated would include patterns, colors, intensity of pigmen- tation, configuration, regularity, and other characteristics of the surface and the margin of the lesion [5]. This was, in fact, the introduction of pattern analysis in dermoscopy. A deluge of publications by several research groups fol- lowed in the last decade of the twentieth century. Today, most of what is considered basic dermoscopy knowledge sprang from a plethora of publications within that short period. The modified pattern analysis, the ABCD rule of dermoscopy, the Menzies method, and the 7-point checklist were published between 1994 and 1998 [6-9]. Almost simultaneously, large studies on basal cell carcinoma and melanoma on specific locations (eg, acral, face) came to light [10-12]. At the beginning of the new millennium, when the first consensus meeting among dermoscopy experts was held, it seemed that all dermoscopy knowledge had been discovered [13]. It is true that most of the information included in the publication that summarized the consensus meeting of 2000 is still considered valid; but what followed in the increased amount of research, was totally unpredictable. We used the Scopus database to retrieve data on publi- cations on dermoscopy, using the following search terms: “dermoscopy” OR “dermatoscopy” OR “epiluminescence microscopy.” Our search revealed a total of 17,213 items. Of them, 392 items had been published in the years leading up to and including 2000 and 16,821 items have been pub- lished since 2001. Of the latter group, 3,426 were published between 2001 and 2010 and 13,395 between 2011 and 2020. The graphs below illustrate the number of publica- tions per year, highlighting the almost exponential increase (Figures 1, 2, 3). Research in Dermoscopy: The Best Is Yet to Come! Aimilios Lallas1, Giuseppe Argenziano2 1 First Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece 2 Dermatology Unit, University of Campania, Naples, Italy Citation: Lallas A, Argenziano G. Research in dermoscopy: the best is yet to come! Dermatol Pract Concept. 2021;11(1):e2021084. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5826/dpc.1101a84 Published: January 29, 2021 Copyright: ©2021 Lallas and Argenziano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License BY-NC-4.0, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: None. Competing interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Authorship: Both authors have contributed significantly to this publication. Corresponding author: Aimilios Lallas, MD, First Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. Email: emlallas@gmail.com 2 Editorial | Dermatol Pract Concept 2021;11(1):e2021084 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 62 2253 DOCUMENTS BY YEARDOCUMENTS D O C U M E N T S YEAR 1955 1961 1967 1973 1979 1985 1991 1997 2003 2009 2015 2021 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1920 1615 1469 1275 1271 1038 921 859 YEAR Figure 1. 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2253 DOCUMENTS BY YEARDOCUMENTS D O C U M E N T S 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2500 2250 2000 1750 1500 1250 1000 750 500 1920 1615 1469 1275 1271 1038 921 859 712 YEAR YEAR Figure 3. 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2011 2253 1920 DOCUMENTS BY YEARDOCUMENTS D O C U M E N T S YEAR 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1615 1469 1275 1271 1038 921 859 712 2012 YEAR Figure 2. Editorial | Dermatol Pract Concept 2021;11(1):e2021084 3 Several factors might be driving this impressive trend. Improved understanding of dermoscopic morphology gener- ated the need for more profound investigations. The expan- sion of the use of dermoscopy in the field of inflammatory and infectious dermatoses opened a new horizon for scientific research. Above all, a new generation of young passionate researchers in the field has surfaced. Up to the year 2000, ARGENZIANO, G. ZALAUDEK, I. LONGO, C. PELLACANI, G. LALLAS, A. MOSCARELLA, E. MALVEHY, J. MARGHOOB, A.A. PUIG, S. 0 100 200 300 400 HOFMANN-WELLENHOF, R. Figure 4. Table 1 Ranking Author Number of Papers 1 Argenziano, G. 345 2 Zalaudek, I. 280 3 Longo, C. 263 4 Pellacani, G. 235 5 Lallas, A. 200 6 Moscarella, E. 180 7 Malvehy, J. 165 8 Marghoob, A. A. 161 9 Puig, S. 158 10 Hofmann- Wellenhof, R. 130 11 Tosti, A. 120 12 Soyer, H. P. 116 13 Thomas, L. 111 14 Micali, G. 103 15 Cinotti, E. 102 16 Lacarrubba, F. 100 17 Carrera, C. 98 18 Piana, S. 88 19 Perrot, J. L. 85 20 Rubegni, P. 85 21 Kittler, H. 80 22 Apalla, Z. 79 23 Scope, A. 79 24 Patrizi, A. 77 25 Errichetti, E. 76 Ranking Author Number of Papers 26 Piraccini, B. M. 68 27 Rudnicka, L. 68 28 Dika, E. 64 29 Haenssle, H. A. 61 30 Stinco, G. 61 31 Tanaka, M. 60 32 Farnetani, F. 59 33 Peris, K. 59 34 Dalle, S. 58 35 Bonifazi, E. 56 36 Dusza, S. W. 55 37 Labeille, B. 52 38 Halpern, A. C. 51 39 Mun, J.H. 50 40 Blum, A. 49 41 Tschandl, P. 49 42 Stanganelli, I. 48 43 Starace, M. 48 44 Verzì, A. E. 48 45 Braun, R.P. 47 46 Cambazard, F. 47 47 Piccolo, V. 47 48 Marchetti, M. A. 46 49 Kyrgidis, A. 44 50 Miteva, M. 44 worldwide only 14 authors had published 10 or more papers on dermoscopy. Today, 145 authors have published more than 30 articles each. The annual rate of published dermoscopy articles con- tinued to increase steadily during the last decade. The 10 top authors of dermoscopy papers from 2011 to date are listed in Figure 4 and a list of the top 50 authors in Table 1. 4 Editorial | Dermatol Pract Concept 2021;11(1):e2021084 In the year 2020, which was dominated by the COVID pandemic, the number of published dermoscopy papers reached a historic high of 2,253 items, with 118 different authors publishing more than 5 papers each. The top 10 are listed in Figure 5. Several journals have published dermoscopy articles throughout the last decades, including all the top-ranking dermatology journals. The largest number has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (788), followed by the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (571) (Figure 6). The fact that the official journals of the 2 largest dermatologic societies in the world published so many papers on the topic highlights their popularity among reader-clinicians. Dermatology Prac- tical and Conceptual is not included in this list because it is a new journal that only recently has been indexed by Scopus. Being the official journal of the International Dermoscopy Society and given us the considerable space we need to devote to dermoscopy papers, and we are confident that our journal will one day appear high up in this list. Predicting the future is a difficult task, and we cannot know if this trend will continue in the forthcoming years or if it will stabilize. What we believe to be true of the future is that dermoscopy will continue to be an invaluable tool for clinicians, inspire research, and unite the medical community. These are the ideals to which we aspire. Aimilios Lallas, MD Deputy Editor Giuseppe Argenziano, MD Editor-in-Chief ZALAUDEK, I. LONGO, C. PELLACANI, G. LALLAS, A. APALLA, Z. MALVEHY, J. RUBEGNI, P. CINOTTI, E. ARGENZIANO, G. ERRICHETTI, E. 0 10 20 30 40 Figure 5. Figure 6. DOCUMENTS DOCUMENTS PER YEAR BY SOURCE D O C U M E N T S JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY AND VENEREOLOGY BRITISH JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY SKIN RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY ANAIS BRASILEIROS DE DERMATOLOGIA 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 YEAR 586 480 339 308 287 284 278 228 198 125 100 75 50 25 0 SKIN RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY BRITISH JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY AND VENEREOLOGY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY SOURCE Editorial | Dermatol Pract Concept 2021;11(1):e2021084 5 References 1. Goldman L, Ortiz LF. Types of dermatitis in American oncho- cerciasis. Arch Derm Syphilol. 1946;53:79. DOI: 10.1001/arch- derm.1946.01510310003001. 2. Goldman L. 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