This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Dermatology  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: In their Contempo Updates article on treatment of primary cutaneous melanoma, Drs Kanzler and Mraz-Gernhard¹ did not mention depth of excision. How deeply to excise has been controversial. The principle of excision to fascia was recommended by the 1992 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference.²

This general recommendation, however, does not specify the level of facia to which excision should extend. Throughout the body, there exist superficial and deep fascia. For instance, the abdomen has several fasciae: the fascia of Camper and Scarpa and then the rectus sheath.

The rationale for excision depth should be to prevent local recurrence of the melanoma. Interestingly, the incidence of local recurrence has decreased substantially over the years, although it is not clear why this has occurred. Clearly, excision margins have decreased.³ Possibly the biological behavior of melanoma is changing. It seems to behave differently in certain parts of the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Treatment of Primary Cutaneous Melanoma
Matthew H. Kanzler and Serena Mraz-Gernhard
JAMA. 2001;285(14):1819-1821.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT