What Tests Diagnose Melasma?
The diagnosis of melasma is usually dependent on the simple visual inspection by the doctor or the dermatologist.
Wood’s lamp examination:
The skin specialist might also take a look at the skin of the patient using the light from a Wood’s lamp to look more efficiently at the extent of discoloration. A Wood’s lamp is a type of lamp that gives a black light. The black light from Wood’s lamp helps in illuminating the skin and aids the technician to look more feasibly into the pigmentation. The dermatologist compares the normal skin of the patient with the damaged skin from UV rays. The Wood’s lamp helps in revealing the damage to the skin surface and as well as the damage appearing in the deeper layers of the skin, which is not visible to the naked eye.
Skin biopsy:
It is less often a possibility that the skin specialist might perform a biopsy of the skin suffering from melasma to confirm the occurrence of melasma. Moreover, doing a skin biopsy also helps in identifying whether the skin is suffering from melasma or other skin problems. Melasma is an overwhelmingly common skin issue in most of the population. Although melasma does not cause skin cancer and is not a precancerous skin condition, there are higher chances of developing melasma when you spend more time outdoors.
Labortary tests
To differentiate the melasma from infections of the body and especially the diseases that cause discoloration of the skin. These tests may include;
- Complete blood picture
- Peripheral smear
- C reactive protein
- Urine routine examination
These tests enable the doctor the differentiate the melasma from other skin conditions. If white blood cells are present in the urine or there is an increase number of white blood cells in the blood tests, it means that the skin condition is due to some infection and not melasma.