Clinical review of 247 case records of Spitz nevus (epithelioid cell and/or spindle cell nevus).
BACKGROUND
Spitz nevus has clinically been described as a dome-shaped usually nonpigmented papular or nodular lesion variable in color from pink to red.


OBJECTIVE
To give an exhaustive description of the clinical features of the Spitz nevus from a large series of 247 patients.


METHODS
A retrospective analysis of the clinical features of 247 Spitz nevi excised from 1974 to 1993 has been performed. We evaluated the following features: age, sex, anatomical location, clinical and histopathologic features; descriptive statistics were calculated and relationships among the above variables were assessed.


RESULTS
Most lesions were pigmented (71.7%), located on the lower extremities (43.3%), more frequent in the first decade (55.8%) and in females (57.9%). The nonpigmented type was more frequent in the head or neck region, whereas the pigmented types were more frequent on the lower extremities. Besides, these types showed different histopathologic features: the spindle cells usually predominated in the flat pigmented type, whereas dome-shaped types were usually composed of both spindle and epithelioid cells.


CONCLUSIONS
In our patients, the pigmented Spitz nevi were more common than the nonpigmented ones; furthermore pigmented and nonpigmented Spitz nevi showed different anatomical locations and different histopathologic features.
Dal Pozzo
V
V
Institute of Dermatologic Sciences, University of Milan, Italy.
Benelli
C
C
Restano
L
L
Gianotti
R
R
Cesana
B M
BM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007866:Leg; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009506:Nevus / Q000473:pathology; D018332:Nevus, Epithelioid and Spindle Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D018331:Nevus, Spindle Cell / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D012880:Skin Pigmentation