Congenital Nevi: The Controversy Rages On

To the Editor.—  While I agree entirely with the editorial stance of Joseph C. Alper, MD, in the June 1985 issue of the Archives¹ that economic concerns should not be the primary directive of patient care (vis-à-vis removal of small congenital nevocytic nevi), I do not agree with his statement that Rhodes et al presented "compelling data" demonstrating the malignant potential of small congenital nevocytic nevi. In addition to the concern about the histopathologic criteria for the diagnosis of congenital nevocytic nevi that Dr Alper alluded to as a weakness of the study conducted by Rhodes et al,^2,3 there are other critical concerns as well.The study by Rhodes et al was based on a combination of historic and histopathologic data. There was historic information available for 134 patients and histopathologic data available for 234 patients. There was both historic and histopathologic information on 30 patients. Among these 30