[Diagnostic value of ultrasound in malignant melanoma]

High-resolution real-time sonography enables visualisation of the morphology of the cutis and of cutaneous tumours. Evaluation of 26 malignant melanomas showed that there is a high degree of correlation between the sonographically measured values of maximal tumour thickness with those determined postoperatively by histometry. As malignant melanomas have very few internal echos, they can be easily differentiated from benign tumours. High-resolution sonography is thus the only diagnostic imaging method which helps to evaluate preoperatively malignant melanomas.