Pregnancy and sex steroid hormone effects on nevi of patients with the dysplastic nevus syndrome

Abstract

Female patients with the dysplastic nevus syndrome who were pregnant or taking sex steroid hormones were prospectively studied to evaluate the effectiveness of photography and close clinical follow-up in detecting nevus change or melanoma development. Seventeen patients, who served as their own controls, were studied during 22 pregnancies. Twenty-four patients who used oral contraceptives and seven who took hormone supplements were similarly studied. This clinical management method provided timely biopsy of changing nevi with a small number of biopsies required per patient. One melanoma occurred during pregnancy, but neither patients who were taking sex steroid hormones nor those in the control groups had melanomas. The rate of nevus change observed clinically was 3.9 times higher when patients with dysplastic nevus syndrome were pregnant than when they were not, whereas no differences were observed whether or not women took oral contraceptives or hormone supplements. The rate of histologically proven dysplastic nevi that changed was 2.0-fold higher when women were pregnant; 1.4-fold higher with the use of hormone supplements and 1.1-fold higher with the use of oral contraceptives. These preliminary data suggest pregnancy and hormone supplements may be temporally associated with an increased rate of dysplastic nevus change.