Revised Classification Criteria Needed Due to Melanoma Overdiagnosis
Source: AJMC, November 2022
Increasing rates of melanoma diagnosis in recent years may be due to overdiagnosis of the skin cancer in patients with a very low risk of death and stage 1 lesions that are 1 mm or smaller, according to recent study findings in Cancer.
“Evidence exists that escalating melanoma incidence is due in part to overdiagnosis, the diagnosis of lesions that will not lead to symptoms or death,” the authors underscored. “Although melanoma is the most serious skin cancer, most patients have high chances of survival. There is evidence that some lesions diagnosed as melanoma would never have caused symptoms or death.”
Using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database, patients for this study were included in analyses if their melanoma was diagnosed in 2010 and 2011, they had negative clinical lymph nodes, and they had early-stage, small lesions. Risk of death was estimated out to 7 years—patients had to have complete 7-year follow-up data—and logistic models identified a subset of patients in this group who may have had a higher risk of death. Of the 11,594 patients in the study, 46% were female patients. Their median (IQR) age was 58 (48-68) years.