both lesions often blanch or partially blanch with pressure. However, hand-held dermoscopy may be useful in distinguishing red dot BCC from benign vascular lesions.
The most common dermascopic findings in BCCs (superficial, nodular, pigmented, and non-pigmented types) include: arborizing vessels, atypical red vessels, background of white-red structure-less areas, comma vessels, featureless areas, and a
scattered vascular pattern.9-11 In contrast to the irregular arborizing vessels seen in BCCs, telangiectasias more commonly have dilated linear and branched vessels on dermoscopy.12 Literature on red dot BCC is scant and there have been no studies on their dermascopic features.
Ultimately, clinical suspicion of red dot BCC can be confirmed with tissue biopsy, as was done in our patient. Histologic examination of the tumor revealed not only superficial nodules of basaloid tumor cells, but also telangiectatic blood vessels and extravasated erythrocytes. In contrast, microscopic examination of telangiectasias commonly shows a proliferation of dilated vessels containing red blood cells.13,14
