In 1910, Darier and Civatte described in details an unusual melanocytic tumor characterized by rapid growth on the nose of a young child. They could not state whether the tumor was benign or malignant. In 1947, Sophie Spitz described the same lesion as juvenile melanoma in which prognosis was frequently excellent. Later, the study was revised and it was concluded that juvenile melanoma was a be...

Background: Spitz nevus is uncommon, benign melanocytic neoplasm that may show some clinical, dermoscopical and histological features of melanoma. It occurs often in childhood, but may appear also in early adulthood. Rare congenital cases have been reported in literature. It is frequently located on the face and the lower extremities, but in some cases may appears on the trunk. Methods: We repo...

The Spitz nevus is a benign melanocytic lesion with clinical and histopathological features similar to those of melanoma. It was first described in 1948 but great controversy still remains today with respect to its diagnosis and management. The use of dermoscopy may increase diagnostic accuracy. In Spitz nevus, the most common dermoscopic finding is a starburst-like pattern, followed by globula...

BACKGROUND Nevi with cytologic characteristics of Spitz nevus and architectural features of Clark's/dysplastic nevus are not well recognized in the literature. METHODS Twenty-seven nevi with characteristics of Spitz nevus and Clark's/dysplastic nevus are reviewed. RESULTS The patients' mean age was 33 years, and 17/27(63%) patients were female. Lesions were most frequent on the trunk and lo...

An 11-year-old girl presented to our department with a blue-gray papule approximately 4 mm in diameter. We suspected that it was a blue nevus or a pigmented Reed/Spitz nevus. On dermoscopic observation, the lesion showed homogeneous black-bluish pigmentation. This dermoscopic feature was suggestive of a blue nevus. However, near-circumferential streaks and a global feature of a "starburst patte...

Distinguishing between Spitz nevus and melanoma presents a challenging task for clinicians and pathologists. Most of these lesions are submitted entirely in formalin for histologic analysis by conventional hematoxylin and eosin-stained sections, and fresh-frozen material for ancillary studies is rarely collected. Molecular techniques, such as comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), can detect ...

BACKGROUND Apoptosis is important for maintenance of tissue homeostasis and often dysregulated in cutaneous neoplasms. The apoptosis inhibitor survivin is expressed in melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers and benign keratinocytic lesions. Its expression has not been studied in melanocytic nevi. OBJECTIVE We determined the expression pattern of survivin in benign melanocytic nevi in comparis...

Reed nevus or pigmented spindle-cell nevus may mimic cutaneous melanoma; however, its dermoscopic and histopathological characteristics are different. This case report describes three patients with distinct clinical, dermoscopic and histopathological presentations, which were correlated to enable a differential diagnosis to be made between melanoma and Spitz nevus