General and Systemic Histopathology, C601&C602
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This picture is a nice
cross section of a piece of skin with a polypoid shaped nevus extending
from the skin surface. Not all nevi acquire this polypoid configuration
but a fair number do. Your section may not include the stalk, sorry. See this slide with the virtual microscope. |
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Note the clusters of benign nevus cells in the dermis. There is maturation "from surface to base," and by this we mean the nevus cells look more and more mature as you scan from the epidermal covering to the deeper dermis. You will see no mitotic figures and there is no cytoatypia of the nevus cells. If there had been nevus cells in the epidermis what would have the lesion been called? No the answer is not melanoma. |