Abstract
Spitz tumors constitute melanocytic tumors with distinctive epithelioid and spindled melanocytes that typically are benign, but can occasionally metastasize to regional lymph nodes, or in rare situations lead to widespread metastatic dissemination and death. They are characterized by specific genetic alterations such as activating mutations in HRAS or fusion genes that involve kinases such as ALK, ROS1, NTRK1, NTRK3, MET, RET, and BRAF, but lack BRAF V600E and NRAS mutations found in acquired nevi and GNAQ and GNA11 mutations found in blue nevi.
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Yeh, I., Bastian, B. (2018). Spitz Tumors. In: Fisher, D., Bastian, B. (eds) Melanoma. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7322-0_6-1
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