Please answer...in need of advice

6 weeks ago I had a skin biospy on my lower leg.  The lesion was small a few mm and appeared blue/black in color.  When touched it was slightly raised.  It also appeared to be under the top layer of my skin(deep).  I saw a derm.who did a shave biopsy.  After the biopsy, he apologized for having to go deeper than what he thought.  He then continued to say I may need to come back for a punch biopsy.  Well, the results came back a week later and I received a letter stating that the lesion was completely benign with no signs of malignancy and it came back as a solar lentigo.  If it was melanoma, was the shave biopsy enough to detect it?  Like I said the shave biopsy was a little deep as stated be the derm.  Should I be reassured by the results? The spot seems to be still there. I just want to let this go and move on.  Thank you for your time!

[krakowak]

your lesion meets none of the criteria for melanoma.  It is not big enough, you did not state that it was irregular, it is not growing in size, and you had a diagnostic test stating its non-growth.  The shave biopsy is sufficient in that all they needed to harvest was enough cells to see if they were reproducing under microscope.  If they were then you would start to meet more of the criteria for melanoma and you would have something to worry about.