Evaluation of large clinically atypical vulvar pigmentation with RCM: atypical melanosis or early melanoma?

Background: Vulvar melanosis can occasionally be clinically challenging by mimicking an early melanoma.

Objective: To report our experience of initial evaluation and follow-up in this peculiar subset of vulvar melanosis using reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM).

Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 18 consecutive cases referred for atypical vulvar pigmentation or for which melanoma was considered and that underwent both RCM examination and histopathological assessment.

Reflectance confocal microscopy of mucosal pigmented macules: a review of 56 cases including 10 macular melanomas.

Background: Although most mucosal pigmented macules are benign, it can be clinically challenging to rule out an early melanoma. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is a noninvasive imaging technique useful in discriminating between benign and malignant skin lesions.

Objectives: To describe the confocal aspects of benign and malignant mucosal pigmented macules with histopathological correlations.

Clitoral metastasis from ductal breast cancer revealing metastases in multiple sites and review of the literature.

Background: Clitoral metastasis from breast cancer is extremely rare.

Case: A 68-year-old woman with a 6-year previous history of breast cancer consulted her physician regarding a papillary and ulcerated clitoral lesion consistent with the appearance of vulvar squamous cell carcinoma. We analyzed the literature.

Features of pigmented vulval lesions on dermoscopy.

Background: The dermoscopic criteria for benign and malignant lesions on the vulva are not well established due to the lack of large series of such lesions. Melanoma should always be included in the differential diagnosis of pigmented lesions on the vulva especially when they are wide, or of recent onset. Elsewhere on the skin dermoscopy plays an important role in the selection of suspicious pigmented lesions, as well as in the selection of the best site to perform the biopsy.

Dermoscopic features of acral lentiginous melanoma in a large series of 110 cases in a white population.

Background: Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is a rare but distinctive subtype of melanoma. The diagnosis is often delayed and misdiagnosis is common, due to frequently unusual clinical presentation and a higher rate of amelanosis than in other melanoma subtypes.

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the dermoscopic features of a large series of ALM in a white-skinned population, in order to emphasize their diagnostic value.

Methylaminolaevulinate photodynamic therapy in patients with multiple basal cell carcinomas in the setting of Gorlin-Goltz syndrome or after radiotherapy.

Background: The naevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS) is a therapeutic challenge due to the multiplicity of cutaneous tumours. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is increasingly used as an alternative treatment for superficial and in some countries nodular basal cell carcinomas (BCC).

Objective: To study the safety and efficiency of PDT in NBCCS.

Haematodermic CD4+CD56+ neoplasm: complete remission after methotrexate-asparaginase treatment.

Haematodermic neoplasm is a recently recognized condition, characterized by tumour cells expressing CD4, CD56 and CD123. This phenotype is strongly suggestive of a plasmacytoid dendritic cell origin. This haematopoietic malignancy is a distinct clinicopathological condition with frequent skin involvement, an evolution toward leukaemia and a rapidly aggressive course.

Dermoscopy of fully regressive cutaneous melanoma.

Background: Metastatic melanoma of unknown origin is a difficult challenge diagnostically and therapeutically. Diagnosis of the putative primary lesion is difficult. This difficulty increases when the primary lesion has undergone complete regression.

Acral lentiginous melanoma: histopathological prognostic features of 121 cases.

Background: Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is the fourth histopathological subtype of malignant melanoma, accounting for < 10% of all melanomas in white-skinned populations. It is characterized by a lentiginous pattern of proliferation of the intraepidermal component of the tumour. Its individualization is still controversial, especially in regard of its prognostic value.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the nail apparatus: clinicopathological study of 35 cases.

Background: Subungual squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is rare. Its diagnosis is often missed or delayed because the clinical presentation is often atypical and can mimic other conditions such as verruca vulgaris, onychomycosis, trauma-induced nail dystrophy or exostosis.

Objectives: To define the different clinical presentations and the main pathological features and to evaluate the most appropriate surgical management of subungual SCC.

Acral lentiginous melanoma: a clinicoprognostic study of 126 cases.

Background: Although the histopathological subtype of melanoma has not been clearly proven to carry independent prognostic significance, acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) seems to confer a poorer prognosis mainly because disease is often more advanced at the time of diagnosis.

Objectives: To investigate the distinctive epidemiological and clinical characteristics of ALM, a peculiar histological entity, and to identify prognostic factors.

Methods: We performed a register-based review of cases from a single large referral centre, the University Hospital Department of Dermatology, Lyons, France.

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy with ultrasound guidance in patients with malignant melanoma and palpable lymph nodes.

Background: Recurrence after treatment of stage I-II melanoma involves regional lymph nodes in about 50% of patients. A reliable method is needed to evaluate lymph node status (metastatic or not) in the case of palpable lymph nodes.

Objectives: To evaluate the efficiency of fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in examining clinically detected suspicious lymph node in patients followed up after surgical removal of stage I-II melanoma.

TGFbeta inhibits CD1d expression on dendritic cells.

The CD1 family of cell surface glycoprotein has been demonstrated to be a third lineage of antigen-presenting molecules for specific T cell responses. They present lipidic, glycolipidic antigen and hydrophobic peptide to T cells. CD1d restricted T cells play a role in autoimmune disease and in tumor immunity.

Elastosis perforans serpiginosa associated with pseudo-pseudoxanthoma elasticum during treatment of Wilson's disease with penicillamine.

Background: Elastosis perforans serpiginosa (EPS) is a reactive perforating dermatosis characterized by the elimination of abnormal elastic fibers from the upper dermis through the epidermis. In a few cases, it occurs as a side effect of treatment by D-penicillamine (DPA). The first case of EPS induced by DPA was described in 1972 in a patient treated for Wilson's disease.

Pseudosclerodermatous panniculitis after irradiation and bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: simultaneous onset suggesting a common origin.

Due to the technical evolution of radiation therapy of breast carcinoma, new manifestations occur as side effects. Newly described unexpected cutaneous events are morphea of the breast and pseudosclerodermatous panniculitis after irradiation (PPAI). They appear as specific consequences of megavoltage radiation.