ABSTRACT
Trichoscopy is a type of an epiluminescence microscopy (ELM) utilized to visualize the skin's undersurface and the hair shafts on the scalp. Any type of dermatoscope can be used for trichoscopy including handheld (pocket) dermatoscopes and videodermatoscopes. Since trichoscopy aims at analyzing simultaneously many hair shafts in a single field of view and most hand-held dermatoscope lenses measure less than 30×10 mm, it is most practical to attach a hand-held dermatoscope to a smartphone/iPad or to a digital camera to expand the overview on a screen. Available options include Handyscope (FotoFinder systems, Bad Birnbach, Germany), DermScope (Canfield, Fairfield, NJ), and most of the DermLite dermatoscopes (3Gen Inc., San Juan Capistrano, CA). Hand-held dermatoscopes provide magnification of 10×, whereas videodermatoscopes provide a variable magnification from 10× to 140× and have photo-storage software applications allowing for real-time comparing of “before” and “after” pictures. There are also portable USB dermatoscopes that offer alternative to videodermatoscopes (FotoFinder leviacam, 20–70×, 13 megapixels). Currently, most published trichoscopy data has been obtained with the FotoFinder videodermatoscope.
