A systematic image analysis of seven widely adopted dermatologic surgery textbooks has found that fewer than one in ten clinical images depict skin of colour, a gap that researchers say may reinforce diagnostic blind spots and perpetuate disparities in surgical outcomes for patients with richly pigmented skin.
The study, published in Archives of Dermatological Research, examined 3,334 figures and found that only 8.7 percent showed skin classified as Fitzpatrick skin types IV through VI, the range encompassing moderately brown to deeply pigmented skin.
Images depicting skin of colour were scarcest in Mohs micrographic surgery, the tissue-sparing technique for skin cancer removal, where they accounted for just 1.5 percent of figures.
Subject of Research: Representation of skin of colour in dermatologic surgery textbook imagery Article Title: Skin of colour representation in dermatologic surgery textbooks: an image analysis Article References: Wang, O. J. E., Stewart, Q., & Shi, J.
Skin of colour representation in dermatologic surgery textbooks: an image analysis.