Reply to: “Histopathologic features of melanoma in difficult-to-diagnose lesions: A case-control study; methodological issues”

To the Editor: I thank Drs Ayubi and Safiri1 for their comments regarding our recent article on the accuracy of different histopathologic features of melanoma in difficult-to-diagnose melanocytic neoplasms.2 I would like to emphasize that this was an exploratory hypothesis-generating research project designed to identify which histopathologic attributes were most likely to be of value in designing a diagnostic algorithm for the difficult melanocytic neoplasm. Ayubi and Safiri recommend (1) additional validation studies and (2) better demonstration of temporality between independent and dependent variables.