Study of sunbathing in children: the preliminary evaluation of a prevention program.

Aims And Background: Sunburn during childhood is associated with an increased risk for developing melanoma in an adult age. The aim of the present study was to define the validity of our educational program in order to teach the positive effects and risks of sun exposure during childhood.

Patients And Methods: We conducted a population-based, case-control study in primary schools of three towns in Northern Italy (Brescia, Bergamo and Trento) between 2001 and 2002.

Does melanoma behave differently in younger children than in adults? A retrospective study of 33 cases of childhood melanoma from a single institution.

Objective: To ascertain whether childhood melanoma presents any peculiar clinical features or differences in prognosis with respect to adults, we retrospectively analyzed the data from 33 patients who were up to 14 years of age and treated for cutaneous melanoma at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milan, over a 25-year period.

Methods: Primary lesions were amelanotic in half of the cases and raised in 73%. Lower extremities were the most common primary sites.

Narrower surgical margins might be sufficient in invasive horizontal growth phase melanoma.

Background And Aims: The delineation of horizontal and vertical growth phases in primary cutaneous melanoma has contributed to our understanding of melanoma progression. Horizontal growth phase invasive melanomas are now believed to metastasize very rarely. Consequently, some of us have started to treat these lesions with very limited surgical margins, assuming that in terms of biological behavior this type of melanoma is more similar to an in situ than an invasive lesion.

Micro-melanoma detection. A clinical study on 22 cases of melanoma with a diameter equal to or less than 3 mm.

Background And Aims: Very small pigmented lesions may represent an extreme diagnostic challenge to the clinician. Our aim was to describe the clinical and dermoscopic features in a series of cutaneous melanomas with a maximum clinical diameter of 3 mm.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of the 924 primary melanomas seen and treated during a period of five years at the Unit for Melanoma Detection of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Milan, Italy.

Clinical and dermatoscopic diagnosis of small pigmented skin lesions.

Small pigmented skin lesions represent a new challenge for all physicians devoted to the early diagnosis of melanoma. The purpose of this prospective study was to establish the diagnostic value of the clinical and the dermatoscopic examinations in a population of 157 consecutive patients with 161 small (< or = 6 mm) pigmented lesions, recruited in a short time. Of these 161 lesions, 13 were thin melanomas (median thickness 0.