A lentigo can pass as a mole or birthmark; can it ever become a melanoma?
Whether or not a lentigo, which often looks just like a small mole or birth mark, could morph into melanoma, here is what Dr. Rebecca Baxt, a board certified dermatologist with Baxt CosMedical, explains:
“Usually no, but there is a variant of melanoma called lentigo maligna which is basically a lentigo gone bad that grows and becomes a melanoma.
A lentigo maligna. Omar Bari, Philip R. Cohen
“The good news is that these are rarely aggressive; they are usually melanoma ‘in-situ’ [confined to the site of its origin] in its earliest stage, and they grow slowly so there is lots of time to catch them before they become a problem.
“They are most common on the face of older people. If left to grow large, they can be very difficult to remove surgically.”
