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Updated: May 5, 2026
Analysis of Lymph Node Volume by Ultra-High-Frequency Ultrasound Imaging in the Braf/Pten Genetically Engineered Mouse Model of Melanoma
Published on: September 8, 2021
Animal-type melanoma: report of five cases with sentinel node biopsy and fluorescence in-situ hybridization analysis
Carmelo Urso1, Chiara Ginanneschi, Chiara Anichini
1aDepartment of Anatomic Pathology, Dermatopathology Section bDepartment of Plastic Surgery, Regional Melanoma Referral Center, Tuscan Tumour Institute (ITT), S.M. Annunziata Hospital, ASL 10 cDepartment of Critical Care Medicine and Surgery, Division of Anatomic Pathology dDepartment of Dermatological Sciences, University of Florence eDepartment of Molecular and Nutritional Epidemiology Unit, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute, Florence, Italy.
Abstract:
Animal-type melanoma (ATM) is a rare tumor, characterized histologically by a predominantly dermal proliferation of heavily pigmented epithelioid and spindle dendritic melanocytes. Five patients with ATM, who had undergone sentinel node biopsy, were studied: three male and two female, between 4 and 62 years of age (mean, 28.0). Lesion size ranged from 4 to 18 mm and thickness from 0.7 to 5.1 mm. Nodal deposits were found in three patients. Of the patients with positive sentinel nodes, the first showed a minimal nodal involvement in one node, the second multiple deposits in one node, and the third multiple deposits in one sentinel node and a single deposit in another; this last patient also had additional tumor deposits in a nonsentinel regional node. Fluorescence in-situ hybridization tumor analysis proved negative in all cases. All patients are alive and free of disease at 36-95-month follow-up (mean, 53 months). Results showed ATM as a neoplasm characterized by a somewhat high rate of lymph node involvement but relatively low rate of visceral metastases and mortality, appearing as a low-grade malignant tumor.
