Our experience of melanoma thickness as a predictor of outcome of sentinel node biopsy.

All follow up protocols for patients with malignant melanoma (MM) are oriented to early detection of metastases. As most of the relapses happened in regional lymph nodes, special attention is given to this region, using different diagnostic tools. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is generally accepted method in determining status of lymph nodes in MM patients, in their staging. This method provides valuable prognostic information, facilitates early therapeutical lymphadenectomy and so provides good base for identification of those patients who are candidates for different adjuvant modalities of treatment. (In 2001 American Joint Committee on Cancer introduced new staging system for melanoma patients which presents good frame for prognosis and therapeutical approach. Inclusion of new criteria will allow better and more individualized prognosis and treatment.) The most important predictor of SLNB outcome is thickness of tumor according to Breslow, while there is no sufficient data to show correlation with other factors. We retrospectively studded 431 patients, out of which SLNB was performed on 188. Forty patients or 21.3% had positive lymph nodes. Our results showed strong correlation of tumor thickness and Clark level of invasion with SLNB outcome. Metastatic lymph nodes were founded in all acral-lentiginous melanoma patients, followed by nodular melanoma--55.6% and superficial spreading melanoma--14.1%. Results showed statistically significant predilection of positive SLNB in male patients and no correlation of positive SLNB with histological type of tumor. On the contrary, it showed significant correlation with development of metastases. Thus our results are similar to other comparable studies.