Original Article December 01, 2014 December 01, 2014

The low accuracy of clinical diagnosis of eyelid tumors in the groups above reinforces the need to improve ophthalmic oncology knowledge in these groups.

DOI: 10.5935/0034-7280.20140069

Objective: To analyze the accuracy of the clinical examination in the diagnosis of eyelid lesions. Methods: From the observation of thirtyfive photos of benign and malignant eyelid tumors were presented to ophthalmologists, for each picture, it was asked 3 questions: 1) the lesion is malignant or not; 2) if considered malignant, the probably histological type; and 3) the tumor is aggressive or not. The phisicians were divided into 9 groups, according to academic degree (time since graduation and Oculoplastics specialty or not). Answers were compared with the results of the histopathologic study of the surgically resected tumor. Results: In total, one hundred and six ophthalmologists were interviewed. The professional experience influenced the diagnosis of malignancy of the tumor, as the Group 1 (first year residents) had the lowest accuracy (64.5%), with lower estimated agreement (kappa = 0.13), and Group 5 (graduated 5 years ago and with expertise in Oculoplastics) the highest accuracy (77.3%), with better agreement (Kappa = 0.45), and presented the best parameters for other analyzed items. For the histological type diagnosis, accuracy was lower: group 1 had the worst performance, with 51.1% accuracy, while the best was for group 6 (graduated over 5 years and with expertise in Oculoplastics, 77.2% ). As for the criterion of tumor aggressiveness, the results were closer among the different categories. Ophthalmologists trained longer and without expertise in Oculoplastics also showed a low diagnostic accuracy for malignancy and to determine the histological type of tumor. Conclusions: The low accuracy of clinical diagnosis of eyelid tumors in the groups above reinforces the need to improve ophthalmic oncology knowledge in these groups.