Determination of clinical and dermoscopic features of acral melanocytic nevi

In this study, the determination of clinical and dermoscopic charecteristics of acral melanocytic nevi was aimed.A total of 154 patients, who applied to the Deparment of Dermatology, Medical Research Hospital, Dicle University, between March-Nowember 2009 were evaluated. The age of patients was changed between 7 and 74 years. The patients were examined prospectively in terms of age, gender, skin types and anatomic localization, color, size, type, whether congenital or acquired (time of inception) and dermascopic patterns of lesions.The data were evaluated with SPSS 16.0 and analyzed with Chi Square istatistic methodWe retrieved digital images of 235 acral melanocytic lesions in 154 patients (85 males and 69 females; mean age, 28.1 years). When skin types of cases were evaluated 64.9% were determined to be type III, 19.5% type II and 15.6% type IV. Among the total number of the patients, 100 had single lesion (64.9%), 34 two lesions (21.4%), 15 three lesions (10.4%), 4 four lesions (2.6%) and 1 patient had six lesions (0.6%). Among all the studied lesions, 213 (91.6%) were acquired while 22 (9.4%) were congenital. Individual lesions were located on the palms (n=112), fingers (n=66), and soles (n=57). Among acral nevi, the parallel furrow (58.7%) was the most common pattern, followed by the latticelike (13.6%), reticular (8.9%), homogeneous (6%), fibrillar (5.1%) and globular (1.7%) patterns. Parallel ridge pattern was not detected in our patients; however two lesions showed multicomponent pattern. When dermoscopic patterns were compared to localization of the lesions, parallel furrows pattern was found as the most common pattern, although the frequency of the patterns which followed parallel furrows were different in some areas. This was also statistically significant. When congenital and acquired nevi were dermoscopically compared, there was no statistically significant difference. Also, statistically significant difference was not detected between dermoscopic patterns and gender, skin types, age groups.The results of our study are consistent with those reported in previous studies. However, reticular and homogeneous patterns were detected at higher proportion, while fibrillar pattern was detected at lower with respect to other studies.Key words: Acral melanocytic nevi, clinical characteristics, dermoscopic characteristics