Walter B, Heukelbach J, Fengler G et al.
Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
Arch Dermatol 2011;147:468–73.
Editor’s note: This is an interesting study comparing different methods of diagnosing scabies in a resource-poor setting in northeast Brazil. For several years, microscopic examination of skin scrapings was considered the standard diagnostic procedure, although the sensitivity and specificity of this technique were not well known. The current authors found that the most sensitive investigation was dermoscopy, with a sensitivity of 0.83 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.70–0.94), which is significantly higher than that of the adhesive tape test (0.68, 95% CI 0.52–0.82; p<0.001). The sensitivity of the skin-scraping test was the lowest (0.46, 95% CI 0.31–0.58).