[Malignant melanoma in children and adolescents]

According to data from the literature and to new data from the German central registry for malignant melanomas from the German Society of Dermatology, a summary is given about the occurrence of malignant melanoma in children and adolescents up to 18 years of age. During the first 10 years of life the occurrence of a melanoma is extremely rare, but slowly increases after the first decade. Several studies have shown that young people often have amelanotic tumors resembling pyogenic granuloma. This correlates with a histopathological high number of nodular melanomas in this age group. A reason might be a delay in the clinical diagnosis of malignant melanoma in children and young adults. Clinical and histopathological examples of melanoma in young people are demonstrated. Pitfalls in differential diagnosis and simulators of malignant melanoma are described and illustrated by examples of a medium sized congenital nevus with extensive intraepithelial spread of single melanocytes resembling a superficial spreading melanoma and by a compound nevus in association with a lichen sclerosus et atrophicus.