Background: Malignant melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. In contrast to other tumors, the role of estrogen in the initiation and progression of melanoma remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate estrogen receptor beta protein expression in human melanoma tissues and in the benign melanocytic lesions. Method: Twenty-one patients, 11 with cutaneous melanoma and 10 w...

Introduction: cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is involved in pathogenesis of various tumors and possibly malignant skin tumors including malignant melanoma; however, there is not enough information about COX-2 expression in benign melanocytic lesions. In the present study we compared the expression levels of COX-2 in malignant melanoma and benign melanocytic lesions. Method: In this analytical study, ...

proper differentiation between acral malignant melanoma and benign pigmented lesions like melanocytic nevi is of great value. to avoid unnecessary biopsies, dermatoscopy has been introduced as a non-invasive modality and has improved the clinical diagnostic accuracy in recent decades. we aimed to describe dermoscopic patterns of acral pigmented lesions of patients in the clinic of dermatology i...

purpose: to define the demographic and clinical features of eyelid masses at a referral hospital over a 10-year period. methods: this is a retrospective record-based study on patients with eyelid masses during the above-mentioned period. data on epidemiologic and clinical features and therapeutic approaches were collected and analyzed. results: 551 patients were included in the study from which...

BACKGROUND Digital image analysis has been introduced into the diagnosis of skin lesions based on dermoscopic pictures. OBJECTIVES To develop a computer algorithm for the diagnosis of melanocytic lesions and to compare its diagnostic accuracy with the results of established dermoscopic classification rules. METHODS In the Department of Dermatology, University of Tuebingen, Germany, 837 mela...

BACKGROUND Acral benign melanocytic lesions in white populations, particularly in subjects with atypical mole syndrome, have been poorly characterized until recently. The advent of dermoscopy has enabled more specific diagnoses of these pigmented skin lesions. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical and dermoscopic features of benign volar lesions in a group of white patients with atypical mole sy...

OBJECTIVE Recent studies indicate that WT1 and Bcl2 protein are detected in melanocytic lesions of the skin. We examined, for the first time, WT1 and Bcl2 expression in a variety of conjunctival melanocytic lesions to evaluate their diagnostic utility compared with other melanocytic markers. METHODS Protein expression and localization of WT1 and Bcl2 were studied by means of immunolabeling an...

The main objective of surface microscopy is the early and accurate diagnosis of melanoma in its initial phases of evolution and infiltration. Since the development of the dermatoscope in the 1990's, surface microscopy has become a simple technique. Differential diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions can be achieved with a diagnostic sensitivity of about 90 percent, and the proper differentiation o...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE In vivo reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is a promising novel technology for non-invasive early diagnostics of cutaneous melanoma. However, the possibility to detect melanocytic atypia in nevi by means of in vivo RCM remains unknown. The aim of the study was to evaluate the significance of in vivo RCM features of melanocytic atypia for the diagnosis of melanocytic ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that a subset of conjunctival melanocytic proliferations exists that cannot be reproducibly classified as benign, malignant, or indeterminate. METHODS Three groups of excisional biopsy specimens of conjunctival melanocytic proliferations were evaluated by 5 ophthalmic pathologists. These groups included lesions that were considered b...