Morphology Drives Melanoma Risk

Source: Dermatology Times, May 2022

Specifying histologic subtypes can drive better outcomes for patients and improve research.

Sex, age, and stage at diagnosis only partially explain the poor prognosis of nodular melanoma and acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), according to a recent study in the British Journal of Dermatology. Accordingly, authors of the first large-scale, population-based comparison of 5-year survival by melanoma subtype argue that physicians should also consider melanoma morphology a key prognostic indicator.

“We hope that dermatologists, and the surgeons and pathologists with whom they work, will become more attuned to the importance of a precise pathological diagnosis, both in managing individual patients and in enabling a more accurate picture of melanoma pathology and survival at the population level,” said lead author Veronica Di Carlo, MSc. She is a research fellow with the Cancer Survival Group in the Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, England.

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