Displastic Nevis?

Question

What is Displastic Nevis and what are the treatments or drugs required to cure it/

Answer 1

If you have any doubts about a mole, get it excised and biopsied, PLEASE! Two years ago I had a mole on my upper arm that I hadn't noticed before. I have lots of freckles and moles and have spent a lot of time in the sun (yeah, yeah, I know it's a no-no now to do that, but when I was a teenager we sunbathed while slathered in cocoa butter and the only sunblock was the zinc oxide on lifeguards' noses).

This mole was different--an "ugly duckling" compared to the others I had. It had black, tan and white coloration and had irregular borders. It was taken off by my physician and sent to the lab. It was an "in situ" melanoma---meaning it was at the earliest stage and hadn't gone any deeper than the epidermal layer of skin.

I had to go to the dermatologist for additional surgery (done in his office with local anesthesia) for a wider margin. This came back "clean." This type of early stage cancer is almost completely curable. But melanomas can grow very quickly and spread to distant sites in the body, so don't wait around if you're suspicious of any mole or spot.

Answer 2

It's a fancy term for an irregularly shaped/colored mole. It's something that you should likely consult your physician about as they are more likely to result in cancer (not certain what the statistics are on melanoma from nevae, but I'm sure it's not terribly high). Surgical removal of the mole would probably be the likely treatment.

Answer 3

Most of us have 10 - 20 moles on our body. Persons with the dysplastic nevus syndrome _ aka atypical mole syndrome - have 100 or more, some of which are of abnormal size, shape or color. Persons with dysplastic nevus syndrome are at greater risk of getting malignant melanoma than the population at large.

I know of no drugs to treat it. Suspicious moles have to be excised or biopsied.