Atopic Dermatitis-Beyond the Skin.

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that can arise during the first months of life or at maturity and have a significant negative impact on the quality of life. The main pathogenic mechanism is the breakdown of cutaneous barrier integrity, which is associated with systemic inflammatory immunologic disorders. Atopic dermatitis involves numerous immunologic, allergic, respiratory, and ophthalmologic comorbidities that develop through similar intricate pathogenic phenomena. The atopic march represents the evolution in time of various allergic diseases, of which food allergies often cause the first manifestations of atopy, even from a very young age. Chronic inflammation translated through specific markers, next to increased immunoglobulin E (IgE) serum levels and heterogenous clinical manifestations, argue for the inclusion of atopic dermatitis in the systemic disease category.

Pathology of Melanoma.

Melanoma is an aggressive malignancy arising from melanocytes in the skin and rarely in extracutaneous sites. The understanding of pathology of melanoma has evolved over the years, with the initial classifications based on the clinical and microscopic features to the current use of immunohistochemistry and genetic sequencing. The depth of invasion and lymph node metastasis are still the most important prognostic features of melanoma. Other important prognostic features include ulceration, lymphovascular invasion, mitosis, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. This article reviews the pathology of melanoma and its precursor lesions, along with the recent advances in pathologic diagnosis of melanoma.

Primary Retroperitoneal Melanoma Presented in a Rare Extracutaneous Site for Malignant Melanoma.

Malignant melanoma, as the name implies, is a malignant tumor of melanocytes, found in the skin, eyes, meningeal lining and the mucosal epithelium of the aero-digestive and genitourinary tracts. Malignant melanoma is typically skin malignancy, which rarely presents at extracutaneous site. Here we present a rare case of primary retroperitoneal melanoma and review the findings in comparison with other cases described in literature.