Correlation of arborizing vessels and serpentine vessels
Arborizing vessels are bright red large-diameter vessels, with distinct treelike branching into finer capillaries, sharply focused on dermoscopy. They are highly suggestive of BCC, especially nodular BCC, but can also be seen in other tumoral and non-tumoral dermatosis such as hypertrophic scars/keloids, epidermal cysts, actinic keratoses intradermal nevi, among others (Jin et al., 2017). Histologically, they may correlate with a major need for vascularization in nodular BCC compared with superficial BCC (Micantonio et al., 2011). Unfocused arborizing vessels can also be observed in BCC, but in a lower proportion (Jin et al., 2017). Other vessels found in BCC, especially superficial BCCs, include serpentine vessels which are short thin vessels that do not branch significantly (Micantonio et al., 2011).
