Use of Photographs in Dermatology

Photographs have always been an essential part of dermatology due to the visible nature of skin diseases. The first photographic atlas in dermatology was created in 1868 and since then photographs has been an integrated part of dermatology and thousands of archives of clinical photographs have been created through the years. Photographs are an important part of everyday clinical practice and used in referral pathways, documentation, conferring among doctors, follow-up regimes, and remote consultations with patients using email or video consultations to record disease progression, assess severity, or effect of treatment. Dermatology relies on visual pattern recognition, and as photographs provide objective, reproducible documentation of skin disease it is also essential in teaching medical students, research, and publication.



Teledermatology, remote monitoring, e-health and digital dermatology are expanding and increasingly used to assess and manage many skin diseases. Severity assessment based on photographs is also important for clinical trials enabling accurate and consecutive monitoring of disease severity and therapy response remotely. During the past two decades, dermatologic publishing has further evolved to include entire journals focused on images, teledermatology, and technology-driven approaches.



In this Research Topic we will investigate the use of photographs of skin conditions from different angles:

- Teledermatology

- Remote assessment of skin diseases

- Use of photographs in clinical settings

- Machine learning tool/artificial intelligence build upon photographs

- Use of photographs to close monitoring in clinical research studies

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Photographs, Severity assessment, Skin diseases, Telemedicine, Teledermatology, Machine learning, Artificial intelligence, Remote assessment

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.