Clinico-Pathological Correlations in Pigmentary Disorders

The clinical appearance of pigmentary disorders is often very distinctive and they can be recognized fairly easily. On the other hand, there are hardly any findings in skin biopsies from these conditions.
However, a skin biopsy is helpful in diagnosing pigmentary disorders in some settings. Some conditions can be diagnosed based on abnormalities in melanocytes and melanin. Some other conditions can be diagnosed by the identification of non-melanin pigment. Interestingly,several hypo- and hyperpigmented disorders are diagnosed by the presence of findings not related to the pigmentary system. The presentation will discuss examples from each of these clinico-pathological groups.