Dermatologist’s role in a cancer hospital: An overview of in‐hospital consultations

As cancer treatment advances, the need for dermatologists in the treatment process is increasing. Cancer patients often experience cutaneous manifestations of internal diseases and dermatological adverse events from chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and stem cell transplants. These diminish patients’ health‐related quality of life and negatively affect cancer treatment adherence. To identify the dermatologist’s role, we analyzed 893 cases of in‐hospital dermatology consultations at the Niigata Cancer Center Hospital during 2019. The number of dermatology consultations was the second highest among all hospital departments. Malignant tumors accounted for 91.7% of the underlying diseases, including hematological, gastrointestinal, and lung cancer as the top three primary cancers. The most common consultation category was inflammatory skin disorders (29.2%), followed by chemotherapy‐related skin disorders (23.5%), cutaneous infections (11.5%), skin tumors (9.5%), and continued treatment of pre‐existing skin disorders (8.8%). The average intervention time was the longest for continued treatment of existing skin disorders (229 ± 60.6 days), followed by malignant wound management (126 ± 60.6 days) and chemotherapy‐related skin disorders (122 ± 60.6 days). The median overall survival time of the 27 patients in the malignant wound management group was 5 months (95% confidence interval, 1.8–8.2 months) from the initial dermatology consultation. Our results show an increasing demand for dermatologists in cancer management. However, the number of full‐time dermatologists is insufficient in some Japanese cancer hospitals. There is a need to consider increasing the number of adequately trained dermatologists in cancer medical settings.