Abstract

Skin cancer, especially malignant melanoma, can vary greatly in appearance and usually develops very quickly. Therefore, the ABCDE rule (also known as the ABCD rule in some countries) was propagated many years ago to help medical laymen to recognize for themselves when it is time to see a dermatologist. But how effective is this rule? Our previous work clearly demonstrates that another self-monitoring protocol has a higher sensitivity and better results than the outdated ABCDE rule: the C-Rapid-H-Plus Protocol. Based on this, a simple algorithm was developed which appeared to give quite promising results. Now we can present a completely new algorithm that has proven to be more reliable than dermatoscopy in predicting the need for excisional biopsy in a collective of 421 patients. The CRHP Advanced Risk Calculator, also based on the C-Rapid-H-Plus protocol, is of great value for both, in-person and telemedicine settings.