Patients can present to outpatient clinics with challenging skin lesions that require some form of magnification to aid diagnosis and management. Traditional magnifiers are not always available in clinics. The use of the digital camera is well established in the surgical field.1 We used the smartphone’s digital camera zoom function to aid magnification of difficult skin lesions (Fig 1a,b). The flashlight source provided in most smartphones has an additional advantage in aiding magnification. This method can be extended to preoperative markings by the surgeon/dermatologist.2 This is a simple and readily available adjunct, although it is not a substitute for dermatoscopy.
Figure 1.
a) Pigmented lesion on the back without magnification b) The same lesion magnified 4 using the zoom function in the smartphone camera
References
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