|
Moles and Melanoma: A Clinicopathological Overview Seyed Mohsen Khorshid Consultant Dermatologist and Dermatopathologist, Basildon University Hospital, Essex and Senior Lecturer in Dermatopathology, Queen Mary College, London University, London, UK The complexity of reaching an accurate diagnosis in the field of pigmented skin lesions is well understood around the world with controversies in the relevant dermatopathological aspects contributing to a huge literature building up over the years. The unrelenting scientific (and sometimes not so scientific) argument amongst leaders and thinkers of the field in the latter part of the 20th century seems to be slowly settling in the early 21st century with fresh insights from the genetic studies. In this lecture I will attempt to summarise the difficulties in histopathological diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions, demonstrate the need for close clinicopathological correlation and finally go through what I believe could be the start of the breakthrough in this field with what a reporting dermatopathologist could expect to have in their diagnostic armoury in the next few years.
|