To analyze clinical and pathological features of Reed nevi (pigmented spindle cell nevi) .

The clinical and pathological data were collected from 26 patients with Reed nevi, who visited Department of Dermatology of Xijing Hospital from January 2015 to June 2019, and analyzed retrospectively.

Among the 26 patients, 15 were males, and 11 were females. Their average age of onset was 17.35 years, and median age of onset was 13.85 years. Reed nevi occurred predominantly on the lower limbs (12 cases) , followed by the face (6 cases) , upper limbs (5 cases) and trunk (3 cases) . All the skin lesions were black in color, and 7 cases presented with maculae, 19 with flat papules, 22 with quasi-circular skin lesions, and 4 with irregular skin lesions. The diameter of skin lesions ranged from 2 to 10 mm, and 23 cases had skin lesions with a diameter of ≤ 5 mm. As histopathological examination showed, pathological subtypes included junctional nevus (15 cases) and compound nevus (11 cases) ; melanocytes were spindle-shaped with obvious cytochromes in 26 cases; nevus cell nests merged with the surrounding epidermis in 4 cases, and obvious fissures were formed between nevus cell nests and the surrounding epidermis in 22 cases; no obvious cell atypia or mitotic figure was observed in any of the 26 cases, and Kamino bodies were observed in 6 cases. All the skin lesions were resected by surgery, and no recurrence was observed during the follow-up of 1 - 5 years.

Reed nevi can manifest as irregular lesions, pagetoid distribution of spindle cells of various sizes can be observed histopathologically, and they need to be differentiated from melanoma.

Nevus, pigmented; Nevus, spindle cell; Melanoma; Reed nevi; Spitz nevi