ASO Author Reflections: Long-Term Survival of Patients with Thin (T1) Cutaneous Melanomas

Excerpt

The risk of death due to thin melanomas (≤ 1.0 mm) that have been treated by wide excision with adequate margins is generally considered to be extremely low; however, more patients ultimately die of thin melanomas than of thicker melanomas. This is principally because, although the risk of death for an individual patient with a thin melanoma may be low, the great majority of those who develop a melanoma present with thin tumors. Also relevant is the consideration that if recurrence does occur, it tends to be much later than in patients with thicker melanomas, with deaths due to thin melanomas still occurring more than 20 years after initial presentation. It is therefore important to risk-stratify patients with thin melanomas to guide their management and follow-up. In our study,1 we sought to determine whether there was an identifiable cut-point separating higher-risk from lower-risk thin melanomas, and to accurately assess long-term survival outcomes (> 10 years) for patients with these tumors. …