Spitzoid melanoma in children: clinicopathological study and application of immunohistochemistry as an adjunct diagnostic tool

Spindle cell melanocytic lesions--part I: an approach to compound naevoidal pattern lesions with spindle cell morphology and Spitzoid pattern lesions

Melanocytic lesions show great morphological diversity in their architecture and the cytomorphological appearance of their composite cells. Whereas functional melanocytes reveal a dendritic cytomorphology and territorial isolation, lesional naevomelanocytes and melanoma cells typically show epithelioid, spindled or mixed cytomorphologies and a range of architectural arrangements. Spindling is common to melanocytic lesions, and may be either a characteristic feature or a divergent appearance. The presence of spindle cells may mask the melanocytic nature of a lesion, and is often disconcerting, either because of its infrequent appearance in a particular lesion or its interpretation as a dedifferentiated phenotype. Spindle cell melanocytic lesions follow the full spectrum of potential biological outcomes, and difficulty may be experienced judging the nature of a lesion because of a lack of consistently reliable features to predict biological behaviour. Over time, recognition of numerous histomorphological features that may portend a more aggressive lesion have been identified. However, the translation of these features into a diagnostic entity requires a gestalt approach. Although most spindle cell melanocytic lesions can reliably be resolved with this standard approach, problem areas do exist and cause no end of grief to the surgical pathologist or dermatopathologist. In this review, the authors present their algorithmic approach to spindle cell melanocytic lesions and discuss each entity in turn, in order to (1) model a systematic approach to such lesions, and (2) provide familiarity with those melanocytic lesions that either typically or occasionally display a spindled cytomorphology.

The immunohistochemical profile of Spitz nevi and conventional (non-Spitzoid) melanomas: a baseline study

Several isolated markers have been proposed to aid in differential diagnostic of difficult melanocytic lesions, albeit none has been shown to be definitive in differentiating Spitz nevus from melanoma. This study proposes a wide panel of 22 markers having important functions in different biological functions (cell cycle, apoptosis, DNA repair proteins and membranous receptors) to provide a combination of proteins associated with either benign or malignant phenotype. Using tissue microarrays, we compared protein expression profiles in 28 typical Spitz nevi and 62 primary vertical growth phase non-spitzoid melanomas. Most of the significant differences were linked to cell-cycle deregulation such as overexpression of cyclin D1 and p21 in Spitz nevi compared with non-spitzoid melanomas (74 vs 16% and 91 vs 27%, respectively) and mitotic rate including Ki-67, highly expressed in deep areas of non-spitzoid melanomas (37%), whereas it is not expressed in Spitz nevi (0%), topoisomerase IIalpha (79% in non-spitzoid melanomas vs 15% in Spitz nevi) and nuclear survivin (69% in melanomas vs 0% in Spitz nevi). A combination of biological markers differentially expressed in Spitz nevi from non-spitzoid melanomas is defined, thus providing a potential tool for histopathological differential diagnostic between Spitz nevus and melanoma. Nevertheless, more studies including atypical Spitz nevi and spitzoid melanomas are necessary to further establish a reliable panel to differentiate among difficult cases.