Cutaneous melanocytomas: a conceptual cluster of atypical and indolent melanocytic neoplasms

Abstract

In recent years, clinical dermoscopy has yielded improvement in the early disclosure of various atypical melanocytic neoplasms (AMN). Beyond this approach, histopathology of AMN remains mandatory in the establishment of their precise diagnosis and proper management. Of note, panels of expert pathologists in AMN diagnosis report only moderate agreement in a variety of puzzling cases. The risk for divergence in opinion and microscopic misdiagnosis is probably increased when histopathologic criteria are not fine-tuned and when the number of AMN entities is increasing. In addition, some of the AMN have been differently designated in the literature including atypical Spitz tumor, metastasizing Spitz tumor, borderline and intermediate melanocytic tumor, malignant Spitz nevus and pigmented epithelioid melanocytoma or animal-type melanoma. Some acronyms have been further proposed such as MELTUMP (after ‘melanocytic tumor of uncertain malignant potential’) and STUMP (after ‘Spitzoid melanocytic tumor of uncertain ...