ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Skin biopsy is a routine diagnostic tool used to evaluate the skin. Ease in sampling of skin has resulted in a large body of information correlating clinical with histopathologic data over more than a century. No other organ in the human body is so easily biopsied for diagnostic purposes. Advances in immunology, molecular biology, electron microscopy, and culturing techniques have contributed greatly to the breadth and depth of knowledge obtained through skin biopsy. Techniques using immunohistochemistry, gene rearrangement, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), human papillomavirus (HPV) typing, DNA flow cytometry, etc., are creating greater demand for skin biopsy to aid in the diagnosis of both cutaneous and systemic disease. Newer techniques that evaluate functional rather than structural microscopic changes will usually require tissue samples obtained via skin biopsy. The quantitative examination of molecular changes after laser surgery and the use of DNA microarrays (gene chips) in functional genomic studies of melanoma are recent examples of these emerging techniques.
