Assessment of morbidity following regional nodal dissection in the axilla and groin for metastatic melanoma.

Background: This study assessed and compared the morbidity of nodal dissection in the axilla and groin including sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), completion lymph node dissection for a positive SLNB (CLND) and therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND) with and without adjuvant radiotherapy (RT).

Methods: Patients who had nodal dissection in the axilla or groin for cutaneous melanoma over an 18-year period (1995-2013) were prospectively documented on a database. The median follow-up was nearly 3 years.

Prospective study of patterns of surgical management in adults with primary cutaneous melanoma at high risk of spread, in Queensland, Australia.

Background: Knowledge of variation in diagnosis and surgery in high-risk primary melanoma patients is limited. We assessed frequency and determinants of diagnostic procedures, wide local excision (WLE) and sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB).

Methods: People in Queensland newly diagnosed with melanoma, clinical stage 1b or 2, were recruited prospectively.

Supportive care needs, anxiety, depression and quality of life amongst newly diagnosed patients with localised invasive cutaneous melanoma in Queensland, Australia.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to determine levels of supportive care needs, anxiety, depression and symptoms amongst patients newly diagnosed with localised invasive primary melanoma and if these varied amongst patients who had a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). We also considered quality of life compared with general population norms.

Methods: Patients newly diagnosed with clinical stage IB-II invasive melanoma were ascertained through Queensland hospitals, specialist clinics and pathology laboratories.

Ilioinguinal lymph node dissection for palpable metastatic melanoma to the groin.

Background: Block dissection of the inguinal lymph nodes is the routine management for palpable metastatic melanoma confined to this node basin. Involvement of the next tier external iliac and obturator lymph nodes in the pelvis is common, and untreated pelvic nodal disease can become advanced before becoming clinically apparent. We have routinely performed combined inguinal and pelvic (ilioinguinal) lymph node block dissection to avoid this morbid outcome.