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Mongolian spot

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Also known as Integument anomalies: [ichthyosis congenita] or [Darier's] or [keratosis follicularis] or [Meige's] or [Milroy's] or [Mongolian spots] or [pseudoxanthoma elasticum] or [congenital NOS], Mongolian Macula, Mongolian spot (disorder), Mongolian Blue Spot, Blue Sacral Spot, congenital dermal melanocytosis

benign, flat, congenital birthmark, prevalent among East, South, Southeast, North and Central Asian peoples, Indigenous Oceanians, and Amerindians

Key facts

Other names
Mongolian spot, Mongolian blue spot, congenital dermal melanocytosis, dermal melanocytosis
Specialty
Dermatology

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

228 papers

via PubMed

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

A Mongolian spot, also known as a slate grey nevus or congenital dermal melanocytosis, is a benign, flat, congenital birthmark with wavy borders and an irregular shape. In 1883, it was described and named after Mongolians by Erwin Bälz, a German anthropologist based in Japan, who erroneously believed it to be most prevalent among his Mongolian patients. It normally disappears three to five years after birth and almost always by puberty. The most common color is blue, although they can be blue-gray, blue-black or deep brown.

Cause

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Mongolian spot” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.