ON THE LIMITED VALUE OF FINE-NEEDLE ASPIRATION FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF BENIGN MELANOCYTIC PROLIFERATIONS OF THE SKIN

This a retrospective study of 39 patients,vith pigmented cutaneous les ions with a subsequent histologic diagnosis of melanocytic neoplasia. The most important cytologic features seen in the fine-needle aspirate s were assessed in the 26 cases deemed satisfactory Sor evaluation. Th ough cytology along with essential clinical data, could enable a gener al diagnosis of melanocytic lesion and could differentiate it from oth er nonmelanocytic pigmented lesions, cytology could not provide a prec ise diagnosis of the different histologic types of benign melanocytic nevi, nor could it enable their differentiation from dysplastic melano cytic nevi ol incipient malignant melanoma. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.