First off I would like to express how tough everyone of you on this board are. Whether it's dealing with this disease in your body or caring for someone that has it or have lost someone to this disease.
I can start by saying I'm lucky. My spot that was removed was indeed a mole. It came back with Severe Atypia. Here is the entire pathology report.
Pathology report reads:
Junctional melanocytic nevus with elongated. fused rete ridges and concentric lamellar fibrosis within the underlying papillary dermis.
A mild superficial dermal lymphocytic infiltrate is identified. Cytologic atypia is severe.
The whole path report reads:
The lesion appears to be completely excised, but is close
to a lateral (peripheral) inked edge. Conservative
re-excision is recommended to ensure all atypical melanocytes are removed.
Immunohistochemical staining was performed using Melan-A (A specific marker of Melanocytes)
to ascertain the degree of melanocytic hyperplasia and presence of intraepidermal melanocytes. Aprropriate postive and negative controls were
performed. Melan-A primarily stained lentiginous cells along the elongated rete with occasional pagtoid cells. These findings support the above histological diagnosis.
[b]THIS CASE WAS REVIEWED AT THE DAILY INTRADEPARTMENTAL CONFERENCE…..[/b]
I guess this was an interesting mole.
So the Derm says the prior damage (nair chemical burn and ruptured the mole pretty good andTook a few months to heal) definitely could have played into the architectural and cytologic atypia but the problem is, it doesnt matter. Understandably when a cell is atypical it's atypical, it doesn't matter how it got that way. It could have been a normal mole, could have been a mildly atypical mole etc. Regardless iIt's severe and needs to come out. Which I 100% agreed with. Comes out next Wednesday. He explained When you have a severe dysplasic mole it gets treated like Melanoma in Situ – 5mm margins.
Also said it may have never turned into melanoma but being severe it has a greater chance than just being mild or moderate.
Told me there is no need to come for bi-yearly visits. My yearly visits are all I need and to just to a self examination maybe once a month and he said if anything should seem outof the ordinary or if I'm unsure just make an appointment to get in. He says way to many people make the mistake of thinking something isnt a problem and may be embarrased to come get it checked out. He would rather tell you it's nothing right away than a serious problem several months down the road.
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