Juvenile melanomas: Western Australian Melanoma Advisory Service experience.

Background/objectives: Juvenile melanoma (before 20 years of age) is a rare condition with poorly defined risk factors. We describe features of juvenile melanoma in Western Australia over the last two decades.

Method: A retrospective review of juvenile melanomas was conducted from prospectively maintained databases, reviewed for patients' characteristics, clinical information, histology, treatment, recurrence and survival data.

When is a sentinel node biopsy indicated for patients with primary melanoma? An update of the 'Australian guidelines for the management of cutaneous melanoma'.

A sentinel lymph node biopsy is a surgical staging procedure performed for patients with primary cutaneous melanoma who are clinically lymph-node negative to determine whether there is low volume nodal metastasis in the draining lymph node field. A systematic review was recently performed to update the Australian clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis and management of melanoma, addressing the question, 'When is a sentinel lymph node biopsy indicated?' This article discusses the findings of the systematic review and the evidence base for the updated guidelines.

Primary dermal melanoma: a West Australian cohort.

Background: The objectives of this study were to identify a subgroup of patients with putative primary dermal melanoma after thorough multidisciplinary clinical and histological evaluation, and to describe the clinical, histological and selected molecular features of these lesions.

Methods: The records of the Western Australian Melanoma Advisory Service were searched for potential cases of primary dermal melanoma. The clinical and histological features were reviewed, immunohistochemical assessment was performed and clinical outcomes recorded.

A critical review of melanoma pathology reports for patients referred to the Western Australian Melanoma Advisory Service.

Aim: To assess concordance between the histopathological reports of referring pathologists and those of pathologists reviewing the cases for the Western Australia Melanoma Advisory Service.

Methods: A retrospective review of 721 pathology reports from 2000 to 2009 was conducted. Histological features including Breslow thickness, Clark level, tumour type and clinicopathological staging [American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC)] were compared.