"Animal-type melanoma." which was presented initially as being melanoma with prominent pigmentation, began to accrue to itself other attributes histopathologic by virtue of the thinking of pathologists such as Crowson, Magro, and Mihm.

In 2001, Requena et al. reported on a lesion that histopathologically was found to contain ballooned melanocytes. [12] That lesion, of duration unknown (nowhere was it specified whether it was congenital or not), appeared on the back of a 27-year-old man. On examination by microscopy conventional, "pagetoid spread" was seen in the epidermis, signs of regression were observed in the upper part of the dermis, and a satellite nodule (i.e., a metastasis) was spotted in the lower part of the dermis. A sentinel lymph node in the right axilla was determined to be positive for presence of abnormal melanocytes, the architecture of it having been effaced by cells of melanoma metastatic. Four months after that procedure surgical, no other signs of metastasis had become manifest.

From this "case report" can be learned that concepts defined poorly at the outset proliferate wildly, becoming ever more abstruse, if not impenetrable, in the process. Balloon-cell melanocytes are an attribute well known of some melanomas, both primary and metastatic, the latter having been recorded in metastases "satellite" and "regional," i.e., in lymph nodes. Metastasis of melanoma, with or without balloon cells, is a sign of prognosis grim, and the absence of metastasis overt after only four months does not alter the gravity of the situation.

In short, the report of Requena et al. adds nothing to understanding of "animal-type melanoma"; on the contrary, it confuses matters even further.