Hello
I have a few questions regarding atypical mole syndrome. I'm a 28 year old male not super fair skinned Mediterranean descent with no family history of melanoma and no major sunburn as a child. After becoming curious how many moles I had I counted 117 total across my body with the vast vast majority being tiny spots like pricks of ink from a pen. Most of them are on my arms. I'm actually not sure if they're all moles or if some are freckles but I decided to count them all as moles just to see what the number looked like at the end. Of those moles only one looks as if it could be atypical as it's a little over 1/4 of an inch (maybe 5/16ths?) in diameter. However it doesn't have ragged borders or any strange colorations that I can tell. I googled some images of those with DNS and I don't look like they do with Nevi and moles all over. Yet I still do have a large number of moles.
Here are my questions:
1. Is any mole larger than 5 mm considered a dysplastic nevus?
2. Does everyone that has over 100 moles have Atypical Mole Syndrome? From my desc
2014-12-12 03:22:22
Hi!
I appreciate your concern over the lesions as you have so many of them. After seeing the pictures you have uploaded I’ll try and explain things to you in light of your queries.
On an average an adult male has about 10-20 normal moles (melanocytic nevi) which are round or oval (as your larger mole) have symmetry (if you draw a line dividing in half—you will get near perfect halves—as your large lesion is more or less) with almost regular margin (as you have—it may not be a perfect round or oval shape as you draw with pencil but more or less round or oval). They may vary in size with the largest being about 6mm in diameter. So to answer your first question not all nevi more than 5 mm in diameter are dysplastic nevi.
Moles are often present in the sun exposed areas: face upper arms forearms upper back etc. So that is why you have most of them on arms. They have symmetrical color (as you have) and they resemble each other (quite likely in your case—need a closer examination of all nevi to comment on this aspect).
Both dysplastic nevus and melanoma have several common characteristic such as asymmetry irregular border color variation and diameter of 5mm or more. However a dysplastic nevus has general color variation with a central darker portion and an outer lighter portion or a central papule with outer colored ring. Also the borders are hazy and merge with the normal skin. If it undergoes a melanoma change the color distribution within the nevus becomes irregular.
To have atypical mole syndrome you must have two or more atypical moles (larger than 5 mm with irregular margin and color variation and oval shape). You do not appear to have these as per your desc
2014-12-12 03:23:10
