Spontaneous regression of a congenital melanocytic nevus

Amiya Kumar Nath1, Devinder Mohan Thappa, Nachiappa Ganesh Rajesh

  • 1Department of Dermatology and STD, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, India.

Congenital melanocytic nevus (CMN) may rarely regress which may also be associated with a halo or vitiligo. We describe a 10-year-old girl who presented with CMN on the left leg since birth, which recently started to regress spontaneously with associated depigmentation in the lesion and at a distant site. Dermoscopy performed at different sites of the regressing lesion demonstrated loss of epidermal pigments first followed by loss of dermal pigments. Histopathology and Masson-Fontana stain demonstrated lymphocytic infiltration and loss of pigment production in the regressing area. Immunohistochemistry staining (S100 and HMB-45), however, showed that nevus cells were present in the regressing areas.

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