ORIGINAL ARTICLE – MELANOMAS Therapeutic Lymph Node Dissection in Melanoma: Different Prognosis for Different Macrometastasis Sites?

Background. The prognostic significance of primary tumor location, especially the poor prognosis for melano-mas in the scalp and neck region, is well established. However, the prognosis for different sites of nodal ma-crometastasis has never been studied. This study investigated the prognostic value of the location of ma-crometastasis in terms of recurrence and survival rates after therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND). Methods. All consecutive FDG-PET-staged melanoma patients with palpable and cytologically proven lymph node metastases operated at our clinic between 2003 and 2011 were included. Disease-free survival and disease-specific survival (DSS) were compared for nodal metastases in the groin, axilla, and neck regions by multivariable analysis