Cutaneous melanoma: a twenty-year retrospective study with clinicopathologic correlation.

The survival of melanoma patients is directly related to the involvement of regional nodes and to the microscopic level of invasion of the tumor. During the past 10 years, with the increased use of aggressive surgical therapy (wide local excision or re-excision of the primary tumor and prophylactic dissection of predictably involved regional nodes) the 5-year survival rate has more than doubled. The 5-year survival has doubled in those patients with regional lymph node involvement who were infused for 5 days with L-phenylalanine mustard. Perfusion of the lower extremities with L-phenylalanine mustard has been abandoned at Vanderbilt. The potential aggressiveness of a specific melanoma can be predicted, and thus an appropriate treatment may be planned.