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Observation
February 27, 2019

Dermoscopic Appearance of Amelanotic Volar Melanoma Compared With Volar Angioma

Author Affiliations
  • 1Dermatology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • 2Department of Dermatology, University of Athens, A. Sygros Hospital, Athens, Greece
  • 3Department of Dermatology, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • 4Department of Dermatology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, New York, New York
  • 5Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
JAMA Dermatol. 2019;155(4):500-501. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2018.5487

The survival rate of acral lentiginous melanoma is poorer than that of other cutaneous melanoma types, largely owing to difficulty in diagnosis and more advanced stages at presentation.1 A single-center retrospective study of 53 acral melanomas found that at least 34% (n = 18) were initially misdiagnosed; of the misdiagnosed cases, 50% (n = 9) were amelanotic.2 The amelanotic variant of acral volar melanoma is scarcely reported, and its clinical and dermoscopic characteristics are unknown. Özdemir et al3 described a dermoscopic feature on the periphery of pigmented acral lentiginous melanomas as a “vascularized parallel ridge pattern,” defined as erythema and dotted vessels filling the ridges and sparing the furrows. However, volar angiomas have similarly been observed to harbor a vascularized parallel ridge pattern on dermoscopy.4,5 Herein, we describe the dermoscopic features of a subungual melanoma with an amelanotic volar component and compare these findings with the dermoscopic features of volar hemangiomas.

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