Il Melanoma

Large-format volume (22 x 28 cm), 180 pages, 190 colour illustrations. Printed entirely in full colour. Bound with a colour-printed, laminated dust jacket.

Melanoma is considered a malignant tumour with a high propensity for metastasis, with a selectively cutaneous localisation. Over the past three decades, three key milestones can be identified that have advanced knowledge in the field of melanoma:

• First, the increasingly widespread implementation of prevention campaigns across society, essentially based on the link between early diagnosis and survival.
• The demonstration of the ineffectiveness of what had long been considered established, namely the presumed usefulness of wide excisions (3 cm) in improving survival.
• The results of multicentre studies confirming the lack of benefit of prophylactic lymph node dissection.

Considerable progress has undoubtedly been made, including studies in genetics and molecular biology, and the identification of individuals at risk and their lifestyle patterns, all of which are valuable for prevention. This strong interest from the scientific and communication communities aims to achieve greater certainty through study methodologies agreed upon by the many centres operating worldwide.

Finally, an innovative chapter—proposed a decade ago but increasingly consolidating promising perspectives in recent years—concerns the sentinel lymph node technique, originally proposed by Morton, taken up in Italy by Cavaliere, and widely adopted in many accredited centres, including in Italy. Because of its reliability, this procedure has been incorporated into the updated TNM system of the American Joint Committee for Cancer, as it allows the detection of lymph node micrometastases. This provides confirmatory information that is useful for staging, timely therapy, and survival expectations.