Development of melanocytic nevi in the first three years of life.

Abstract

Extract: Interest in melanocytic nevi (moles) stems from their clinical, histologic, and epidemiologic association with melanoma. Few studies of nevi have been longitudinal (1,2), and all, apart from our own (3), have involved subjects 3 years old or older. Hence, little is known about the age at which nevi begin to develop. We compared rates of development of nevi from birth to 3 years of age in two cohorts of Caucasian children of similar ethnicity from the contrasting climates of Townsville, Australia [19° S; high levels of ambient UV radiation (4)], and Glasgow, U.K. [55° N; low levels of ambient UV radiation (5)]. The Australian cohort was recruited by approaching postpartum women at three maternity hospitals in Townsville during September and October 1994; 96.7% of the eligible mothers participated, resulting in a cohort of 115 babies of European ancestry. Scottish neonates were recruited from October 1993 through August 1994 by inviting postpartum women at the Queen Mother's Hospital, Glasgow, to participate in a randomized intervention trial focused on sun avoidance in infancy (consent rate for parents at Queen Mother's Hospital, Glasgow = 97.4%). From the latter group, only control subjects (no intervention; n = 157) were included in this study.