«Baby Merkel»: tumor de Merkel incipiente; a propósito de 2 casos

We report 2 cases of incipient Merkel cell carcinoma. Both cases of incipient Merkel cell carcinoma measured approximately 5 mm in diameter. One tumor was confined to the epidermis and papillary dermis on the nose of a 79-year-old man and the other was located in the deep dermis, almost in the hypodermis, on the buttock of an 82-year-old woman. In both cases, the lesions had appeared weeks earlier. The first tumor seemed to originate in the dermoepidermal junction whereas the second originated almost in the hypodermis. Although the lesions were at a similar disease stage and had a similar size, their different locations within the dermis highlight once again the controversy about which cells give rise to Merkel cell carcinoma. The precursor cells could feasibly be Merkel cells in the first case but not in the second.