REVIEW   

Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia 2017 August;152(4):355-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-0488.16.05358-X

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Sentinel lymph node biopsy in cutaneous melanoma

Simone RIBERO ^{1, 2, 3} ✉, Eugenio SPORTOLETTI BADUEL ¹, Simona OSELLA-ABATE ⁴, Emi DIKA ⁵, Pietro QUAGLINO ², Franco PICCIOTTO ¹, Giuseppe MACRIPÒ ¹, Veronique BATAILLE ³

¹ Section of Dermatologic Surgery, Department of Oncology, Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino Hospital, Turin, Italy; ² Section of Dermatology, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, Turin Italy; ³ Department of Twins Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK; ⁴ Section of Surgical Pathology, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy; ⁵ Dermatology Department, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

The management of melanoma is constantly evolving. New therapies and surgical advances have changed the landscape over the last years. Since being introduced by Dr Donald Morton, the role of sentinel lymph node has been debated. In many melanoma centers, sentinel node biopsy is not a standard of care for melanoma above 1 mm in thickness. The results of the MSLT-II Trial are not available for a while and in the meantime, this procedure is offered as a prognostic indicator as it has been shown to be very useful for assessing risk of relapse. The biology of lymph node spread in melanoma is a complex field and there are many factors which influence it such as age, melanoma body site, thickness but other factors such as regression, ulceration and gender need further evaluation. In this review, we address the clinical value of sentinel lymph node biopsy and how its indication has changed over the years especially recently with the setup of many adjuvant trials which are offered to stage 3 melanomas.

KEY WORDS: Sentinel lymph node - Melanoma - Neoplasms - Prognosis