Clinicopathological Study of Malignant Melanoma at Tertiary Care Centre

Malignant melanoma, which causes three fourth of all deaths related to skin cancer, is more common in Caucasian population compared to Asian population. There is no reliable information about malignant melanoma in Nepal hence an effort has been made to assess the clinical and pathological features of melanoma patients.

This was a retrospective hospital based study done in the department of Pathology. All cases of malignant melanoma diagnosed on biopsy during a period of 13 years were retrieved, reviewed and collated.

We had 35 cases with age range from 15 to 84 years with the mean of 51.4 years and M: F of 1.3:1. The predominant site was lower extremities. Most cases were less than 3 cm. Majority of histologic subtypes were nodular melanoma 29 (82.8%) followed by mucosal lentiginous melanoma 3 (8.6%), superficial spreading melanoma 2 (5.7%) and acral lentiginous melanoma 1 (2.9%). Half (50%) of the excisional biopsies were at Clark's level IV and 75% were at high Breslow thickness.

The most frequent site in males and females were lower extremities and trunk respectively in contrast to Western studies where it is opposite. Nodular melanoma was the commonest histologic subtype while in other Asian studies and in Western studies majority were acral lentiginous melanoma and superficial spreading melanoma respectively.