Poor prognosis for thin ulcerated melanomas and implications for a more aggressive approach to treatment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Clinical guidelines for the treatment of melanoma are based largely on the behavior of thicker tumors. As a result, little is known about survival differences among patients with thinner tumors.

Objective

To investigate the variability in survival for American Joint Committee on Cancer stage T1 thin melanoma tumors, defined as tumors less than 1 mm thick at diagnosis.

Methods

This population-based series included 43,008 non-Hispanic whites in whom cutaneous melanoma was diagnosed between 2004 and 2013 from the California Cancer Registry. Survival outcomes were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate risk of death.

Results

Survival for patients with thin ulcerated tumors was comparable to that for

SUBMITTER: Hawkins ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7232854 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature