The biopsy will ensure it wasn't an errant Spitz nevus, which usually only occurs in younger people.

Nevoid melanoma is a cutaneous condition that may resemble a Spitz nevus or an acquired or congenital melanocytic nevus.

"I indicated to Barbara Stanley . . . that Dr. Wallace Clark felt that this was a benign lesion called a Spitz nevus, and that he could not be a hundred per cent sure it was not a melanoma," he testified.

Melanoma with features of a Spitz nevus (also known as a "Spitzoid melanoma") is a cutaneous condition characterized histologically with tissue similar to a spitz nevus and with overall symmetry and a dermal nodule of epithelioid melanocytes that do not mature with progressively deeper dermal extension.