The recovery pattern of patients with vulvar melanoma treated by combined surgery and radiation therapy.

Twenty-five patients with malignant vulvar melanoma have been treated with radical vulvectomy using the warm knife-open wound technique. Following preoperative radiation therapy, dissection of the groin and, in some cases, pelvic lymphadenectomy, were performed as a second procedure. Crude five-year survival was 9/21 (approximately 43%). Patients with tumours of Clark level II--IV have been found to have a good prognosis (7/9), while those with Clark V-tumours have had an extremely poor prognosis (2/10). Prophylactic dissection of the inguinal nodes has not been found to improve the prognosis, and pelvic lymphadenectomy is considered to be inadvisable.