Neurotropic melanoma of the face invading the maxillary nerve

Neurotropic melanoma is a variant of desmoplastic melanoma which, in addition to a spindle-cell vertical component and fibrosis, exhibits a fascicular growth pattern and invades cutaneous nerves. Here we describe a neurotropic melanoma which arose in a small lentigo maligna melanoma and invaded the maxillary nerve for a distance of 5 cm. Ultrastructural features were similar to those of previously described neurotropic melanomas and tumor fascicles contained S-100 protein and neuron-specific enolase immunoreactivity.