Deep Penetrating Nevus / 대한피부과학회지

ABSTRACT

Deep penetrating nevus (DPN) is a distinctive melanocytic nevus firstly reported by Seab et al. in 1989. It is characterized by its dark pigmentation, occurring mostly on the face, neck, or shoulder, and usually measures less than 1 cm in diameter. Since it has histologic similarities with other cutaneous pigmented lesions such as combined nevus, blue nevus, Spitz nevus, and pigmented spindle cell nevus, it is often difficult to diagnose and it may be clinically and histologically mistaken for a malignant melanoma. There have been 2 reported cases of DPN in the Korean dermatologic literatures; therefore, we report a case of DPN mimicking malignant melanoma.