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Cutaneous melanoma in childhood: Incidence and prognosis
Author(s) -
Milton Gerald W,
Shaw Helen M,
Thompson John F,
McCarthy William H
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
australasian journal of dermatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.67
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 1440-0960
pISSN - 0004-8380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-0960.1997.tb01009.x
Subject(s) - medicine , melanoma , incidence (geometry) , history , optics , cancer research , physics
The incidence and prognosis of cutaneous melanoma in children under 13 years of age has always been difficult to assess. The main reasons for this difficulty include the rarity of melanoma in children, referral biases from investigating institutions, changing conceptions in the histological diagnosis of true melanoma, and the lack of large enough study groups with sufficient follow-up to estimate 10-year survival rates. The present study documents 32 cases of childhood cutaneous melanoma drawn from the records of two large referral centres in New South Wales, Australia: the Sydney Melanoma Unit and the Newcastle Melanoma Unit in order to demonstrate some of the difficulties in the assessment of incidence and prognosis in children.