Prevalence Study of Nevi in Children from Barcelona Dermoscopy, Constitutional and Environmental Factors

Background: Malignant melanoma is becoming an increasingly important problem in public health as incidence rates have been increasing continuously in Caucasian populations. Childhood and adolscence is an important time of life for the formation and evolution of nevi, and the presence of a higher number of nevi in early life could predict a major risk of developing melanoma. Objectives: (1) To determine the number of nevi and the dermoscopic pattern predominance in children of our population. (2) To relate it to constitutional and environmental factors. Methods: Clinical and dermoscopic examinations were performed in 180 children aged 1-15 years. A questionnaire including topics such as past history of sunburns, tanning ability, tendency to sunburn, history of sunlight exposure, use of sunscreens, tendency to freckle and family history of cancer was completed in a face-to-face interview with the parents. On clinical examination, we evaluated hair color, eye color, number of nevi and the presence of nevi in specific locations. All melanocytic lesions were examined dermoscopically, and all patterns were registered as present or absent. We also registered the predominant dermoscopic pattern of the child, defined as being present in more than 40% of all of the individual's nevi. Results: The mean number of moles was 17.5. Male gender, past history of sunburns, facial freckling and family history of breast cancer were independent risk factors for having a higher number of nevi. We found that 61.1% of children had nevi on the face and neck, 17.2% on the buttocks, 11.7% on the scalp, 19.4% had acral nevi and 31.7% had congenital nevi. We found the presence of nevi in some of these locations to be a risk factor for having a higher number of nevi. The most frequent dominant dermoscopic pattern found in our population was the globular type. Interestingly, we found that the homogeneous pattern predominates in the youngest children, the reticular pattern predominates in adolescents and the dominant globular pattern is constant among all ages evaluated. Conclusion: This is the first study clinically and dermoscopically characterizing nevi in children from our population, and evaluating constitutional and environmental risk factors. Copyright (C) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel