gms | German Medical Science

Objectives/Interrogation: Due to the rapid development of technology in the 21st century, the creation and processing of images became available to everyone. High-quality photos is now possible to do with a regular smartphone. A high level of modern photos allow to use such images in medicine to create reporting documents, conduct remote consultations, and to evaluate the results of patient treatment.

The main task of the work was to describe the rules and introduce standards for the performance of digital photos in Dupuytren's disease surgery for creating high-quality photo documents.

Methods: The materials for our study were represented by more than 60 000 digital photos for the period from 2003 to 2017.

Results and Conclusions: After studying, organizing and processing received images, optimal conditions, standard projections and principles of photographing hands of patients with Dupuytren's disease were revealed to obtain the most reliable data. We can estimate the stage of the disease; the number of palmar aponeurosis involved in the pathological process; the presence of changes on the skin (postoperative scars, skin retractions, nodes of the palmar aponeurosis); function of flexion of fingers when learning the received photo documents. Conformity analysis of the data obtained from the photo and in-person examination was carried out.

The described methods and standards will help in creating a high-quality personal photo and video archive, which is necessary for each practicing surgeon for systematization of observations, evaluate long-term results, and also to demonstrate their achievements to colleagues as evidence. The authors are sure that in the near future we will become witnesses and participants in the creation of a unified world database of clinical observations of patients. The appearance of such a resource will allow to unite the efforts of surgeons from all over the world in the fight against a common enemy - Dupuytren's disease.