Clinical Characteristics in Early Childhood Associated with a Nevus-Prone Phenotype in Adults from Tropical Australia: Two Decades of Follow-Up of the Townsville Preschool Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT: Having numerous melanocytic nevi increases melanoma risk. Few studies have enumerated nevi in children and re-examined them as adults. We aimed to determine if childhood nevus-counts predict nevus-prone adults, and further explore the relevance of host-factors and sun-exposure. Fifty-one Caucasian residents of Townsville (19.16° S, Queensland, Australia) had full-body nevus-counts aged 1-6 and 21-31 years-old. Sun-exposure was determined from questionnaires. Children in the upper-quartile of nevus-counts acquired nevi more rapidly than those in the bottom-quartile (13.3 versus 4.7 nevi/year; p < 0.0005). Children sunburnt before 7 years-old acquired more incident nevi by adulthood (238 versus 126, p = 0.003) particularly if sunburn was severe (321 versus 157.5, p = 0.0

SUBMITTER: Barsoum R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7700251 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature