A cellular blue nevus with pigmented epithelioid melanocytoma‐like pattern on the ipsilateral upper arm associated with a congenital plaque‐type blue nevus on the hand

Abstract

A 36-year-old man presented with a subcutaneous nodule on the right upper arm. A small nodule had developed 8 years earlier, and grew in size, accompanied by a tingling sensation and numbness. In addition, he had a bluish irregular patch on the right hand since birth, which crossed from the palm to the dorsal hand. Skin biopsies from the hand showed a heavily pigmented melanocyte proliferation in the dermis with perieccrine, perivascular, and perineural involvement, and a diagnosis of congenital plaque-type blue nevus was made. The tumor on the arm was located closely along the median nerve, and was observed as a large black pedunculated round tumor. Histopathologically, the tumor on the arm consisted of densely packed tissue with nevoid cells without atypia in the larger nodular part, and heavily pigmented spindle and epithelioid melanocytes in the slender stalk area, which was diagnosed as cellular blue nevus with pigmented epithelioid melanocytoma-like pattern. Next-generation sequencing revealed GNAQ mutations in the hand lesion, and in the lesions on the arm. This case suggests that the areas of skin following the same neural distribution of a congenital plaque-type blue nevus on the extremities should be followed up for secondary changes.