• Antonio Tejera-Vaquerizo, Eduardo Nagore, Susana Puig, Caroline Robert, Philippe Saiag, Paula Martín-Cuevas, Elena Gallego, Enrique Herrera-Acosta, José Aguilera, Josep Malvehy, Cristina Carrera, Andrea Cavalcanti, Ramón Rull, Antonio Vilalta-Solsona, Emilie Lannoy, Celine Boutros, Naima Benannoune, Gorana Tomasic, Philippe Aegerte, Sergi Vidal-Sicart, Josep Palou, L Lúcia Alos, Celia Requena, Víctor Traves, Ángel Pla, Isidro Bolumar, Virtudes Soriano, Carlos Guillén, and Enrique Herrera-Ceballos.
• Servicio de Dermatología, Instituto de Biomedicina de Málaga (IBIMA), Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria/Universidad de Málaga, Boulevard Louis Pasteur, 32, 29071 Málaga, Spain. Electronic address: antoniotejera@aedv.es.
• Eur. J. Cancer. 2015 Sep 1; 51 (13): 1780-93.

IntroductionIn patients with primary cutaneous melanoma, there is generally a delay between excisional biopsy of the primary tumour and sentinel-node biopsy. The objective of this study is to analyse the prognostic implications of this delay.Patients And MethodThis was an observational, retrospective, cohort study in four tertiary referral hospitals. A total of 1963 patients were included. The factor of interest was the interval between the date of the excisional biopsy of the primary melanoma and the date of the sentinel-node biopsy (delay time) in the prognosis. The primary outcome was melanoma-specific survival and disease-free survival.ResultsA delay time of 40 days or less (hazard ratio (HR), 1.7; confidence interval (CI), 1.2-2.5) increased Breslow thickness (Breslow ⩾ 2 mm, HR, > 3.7; CI, 1.4-10.7), ulceration (HR, 1.6; CI, 1.1-2.3), sentinel-node metastasis (HR, 2.9; CI, 1.9-4.2), and primary melanoma localised in the head or neck were independently associated with worse melanoma-specific survival (all P < 0.03). The stratified analysis showed that the effect of delay time was at the expense of the patients with a negative sentinel-node biopsy and without regression.ConclusionEarly sentinel-node biopsy is associated with worse survival in patients with cutaneous melanoma.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

34 keywords...

hide…