Abstract

Malignant melanoma in childhood is very rare and is often misdiagnosed as Spitz nevus because of their histological similarities. Our patient was 14-year-old girl who had enlarging, raised, pigmented nodule on her left foot. Histopathologically, it showed some features of Spitz nevus. The tumor cells were composed of atypical, pleomorphic epithelioid cells. Mitotic figures were very sparse and small nevoid cells were seen in the deeper potion. But the cyto-fluorometric analysis of nuclear DNA content showed pattern IV, aneuploid pattern. The results of fluorescence microscopy of unstained sections and immunostaining with HMB-45 also suggested the malignant change.