The iris signal: blue periphery, tan collaret and freckles pattern – strong indicators for epidermal skin cancer in South‐Eastern Europe

BACKGROUND:Eye and skin share the embryological origin. Both are established risk factors in epidermal skin cancer. There are few reports using iris colour classification scales, most of them analyse colour in general or are too complex to use in daily practice. OBJECTIVES:To investigate which iris colour pattern is associated with epidermal skin cancer in a S-E European Caucasian population. METHODS:A case-control study was conducted on 480 patients: 229 skin cancers patients and 251 controls (dermatological patients free of skin cancers) admitted in two medical clinics of Dermatology in Bucharest, between October 2011 and May 2014. High-resolution iris photographs were taken for each patient. Three parameters of the iris were analysed individually and in association patterns for each patient: periphery, collaret and freckles. RESULTS:The most frequent iris colour pattern associated with epidermal skin cancer was blue periphery with light brown collaret and freckles present. In terms of individual parameters, the strongest indicators for skin cancer patients were blue periphery and blue collaret. CONCLUSIONS:The results of this study sustain the hypothesis that blue periphery with light brown collaret and freckles iris pattern is a reliable phenotypic marker for epidermal skin cancer. The results of this study differ from previous reports in which skin cancer risk was associated with a homogeneous blue iris. We account these differences in the characteristics of the recruited patients (S-E European, skin type II and III). The assessment of iris colour patterns is an easy and inexpensive detection tool in skin cancer risk assessment.