Clinical Considerations on Sentinel Node Biopsy in Melanoma from an Italian Multicentric Study on 1,313 Patients (SOLISM–IMI)

• Published in: Annals of surgical oncology 2009-07, Vol.16 (7), p.2018-2027
• Main Authors: Testori, Alessandro, De Salvo, Gian Luca, Montesco, Maria Cristina, Trifirò, Giuseppe, Mocellin, Simone, Landi, Giorgio, Macripò, Giuseppe, Carcoforo, Paolo, Ricotti, Giuseppe, Giudice, Giuseppe, Picciotto, Franco, Donner, Davide, Di Filippo, Franco, Soteldo, Javier, Casara, Dario, Schiavon, Mauro, Vecchiato, Antonella, Pasquali, Sandro, Baldini, Federica, Mazzarol, Giovanni, Rossi, Carlo Riccardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; False Negative Reactions; Female; Humans; Italy; Lymph Nodes - pathology; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Melanoma - mortality; Melanoma - pathology; Melanomas; Middle Aged; Oncology; Predictive Value of Tests; Prognosis; Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy; Skin Neoplasms - mortality; Skin Neoplasms - pathology; Surgery; Surgical Oncology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1068-9265; 1534-4681
• DOI: 10.1245/s10434-008-0273-8

Background Although widely used for the management of patients with cutaneous melanoma, the sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy (SNB) procedure raises several issues. This study was designed to investigate: the predictive factors of SLN status, the false-negative (FN) rate, and patients’ prognosis after SNB. Patients and Methods This is an observational, prospective study conducted on a large series of consecutive patients ( n  = 1,313) enrolled by 23 Italian centers from 2000 through 2002. A commonly shared protocol was adopted for the SNB surgical procedure and the SLN pathological examination. Results The SLN positive and false-negative (FN) rates were 16.9% and 14.4%, respectively (median follow-up, 4.5 years). At multivariable logistic regression analysis, the frequency of positive SLN increased with increasing Breslow thickness ( p