Sophie Spitz

Sophie Spitz, M.D. (4 Feb 1910–11 August 1956) was an American pathologist who published the first case series of "juvenile melanoma," (a special form of benign melanocytic nevi), skin lesions that have come to be known as Spitz nevi.^[1][2]

Life and career

Spitz was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Her parents were Jewish and her father, Joe Spitz, a tailor, had emigrated from Austria-Hungary.^[3] Her mother, Florence Levy Spitz, had been born in Tennessee.^{[4] [5][6]} Her uncle, Herman Spitz, was a pathologist and inspired her to pursue a career in medicine.^[7][6] She earned her MD from Vanderbilt University in 1932 and commenced her residency at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.^[6]

Spitz met and married her husband, Arthur Allen, also a pathologist, in 1942.^[8] At around this time, she joined the Army Institute of Pathology, where she remained until 1945. It was here she developed an interest in tropical diseases and co-authored Pathology of Tropical Diseases: An Atlas with James Earle Ash.^[9]

Following World War II, she returned to work at the New York Infirmary and also at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where she described the twelve cases of what was then known as juvenile melanoma and recognized that these lesions have benign behavior despite their microscopic resemblance to melanoma. This clinically important information came to be published in the American Journal of Pathology in 1948, and the lesion now bears her name.^[10]

Death

At 46 years of age, Spitz died from colon cancer, before the term Spitz nevus was popularised. For her contributions to pathology, and especially for her foresight in advocating the use of the pap smear when it was newly devised, she is recognized as a prominent pathologist of her time.^[6]

References