café au lait spots

Definition: pigmented cutaneous lesions, ranging from light to dark brown, and due to an excess of melanosomes in the malpighian cells, rather than to an excess of melanocytes; café au lait spots are one of the major cutaneous manifestations of neurofibromatosis (von Recklinghausen disease); six or more café au lait spots, some exceeding 1.5 cm in diameter, can almost always be found in type 1 (peripheral) neurofibromatosis. These are often accompanied by frecklelike spots in the axilla.

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