Yellow color upon dermatoscopy does not exclude melanoma!

Editorial/Commentary DPC | Dermatol Pract Concept 2013;4(2):10 51 In this issue, Rosendahl and colleagues report a case of non-choroidal melanoma that shows a strikingly unusual dermatoscopic aspect, namely, structureless yellow color. The authors correlate the yellow color to the presence of lipofuscin using tissue staining with Sudan Black. Upon dermatoscopy, colors are important because they allow the estimation of different types of chromophores located at different levels of the skin. The most important chromophore in melanocytic tumors is melanin, which gives rise to black, brown, gray or blue color depending on its location in the skin. Hemoglobin is the major source of colors in vascular tumors and appears dermoscopically either ink black, bright red, purple or blue. Instead, yellow color has been linked to keratin or lipids, and accordingly, it is commonly seen in keratinizing tumors including seborrheic keratosis and squamous cell carcinoma or in tumors with sebaceous differentiation, but also in juvenile xanthogranuloma or granulomatous skin diseases [1]. It is more surprising that recent dermatoscopic observations report on yellow color in both melanocytic nevi and melanoma [2,3]. Herein we would like to add an additional observation of melanoma dermatoscopically characterized by yellow color. Yellow color upon dermatoscopy does not exclude melanoma!