Benign pigmented skin lesions are very common in children and can be generally classified into congenital or acquired nevi. Congenital nevi can be small, medium or large. Large nevi are usually associated with a higher risk of malignant transformation into melanoma. Acquired melanocytic nevi can be classified into typical melanocytic nevi, clonal nevi, or halo nevi. Cytological atypia can be ob...

Raman spectroscopy is a noninvasive optical technique capable of measuring vibrational modes of biomolecules within viable tissues. In this study, we evaluated the application of an integrated real-time system of Raman spectroscopy for in vivo skin cancer diagnosis. Benign and malignant skin lesions (n = 518) from 453 patients were measured within 1 second each, including melanomas, basal cell ...

Background. Significant decreases in p16 expression have been shown to occur in melanoma compared to Spitz tumors, and loss of p16 staining has been found to correlate with melanoma tumor progression. However, comparison of p16 between atypical cellular blue nevi (CBN) and melanoma has not been reported previously. Methods. p16 immunohistochemical staining was evaluated in 14 atypical CBN, 8 co...

The mast cells participate in inflammation and possibly in carcinogenesis. The aim of the study was to study mast cells in melanocytic lesions. The material consisted of 24 pigmented nevi, 18 dysplastic nevi and 19 melanomas. The sections were stained immunohistochemically for tryptase and chymase. Positive cells were counted inside the lesions and at the interface between the lesion and dermis...

BACKGROUND Patients with the atypical mole syndrome have multiple dysplastic nevi that appear to be randomly distributed on certain preferred anatomical sites such as the upper back. These dysplastic nevi are thought to be acquired melanocytic nevi that begin appearing at puberty. To our knowledge, the presence of agminated atypical (dysplastic) nevi has not been reported. OBSERVATION We desc...

OBJECTIVES To create a dermoscopic classification of atypical melanocytic nevi (Clark nevi) and to investigate whether individuals bear a predominant type. DESIGN Digital dermoscopic images of Clark nevi were classified according to structural features, ie, reticular, globular, or homogeneous patterns or combinations of these types. The nevi were also characterized as central hypopigmented or...

Individuals with multiple melanocytic nevi oftentimes have melanocytic nevi, usually two, with similar clinical and histopathologic patterns that may be typical or atypical. The melanocytic nevi are known in common parlance as signature nevi [1, 2]. In addition to being aware of these nevi, finding multiple unconventional melanocytic nevi with architectural pattern asymmetric and/or cellular pa...

We examined 296 patients with a history of melanoma and 145 controls for the presence of atypical (dysplastic) nevi. We found that 34% of patients with melanoma and 7% of controls had clinically atypical (dysplastic) nevi. Patients and controls with atypical (dysplastic) nevi had more nevi than the subjects without. The number of nevi varies negatively and significantly with age (r = 0.37, P le...