[Surgical treatment of malignant melanomas of the skin]

The authors report on the most important problems of surgical treatment in primary melanomas. Great importance should be attributed to surgery especially in I. stage melanomas, just because it might influence further development of the disease--they accentuate. This argument will justify the performance of an elective lymphonodal dissection if there are some risk factors (e.g. depth of invasion, tumour thickness, exulceration, anatomic subsites, etc.) suggesting the possible presence of microscopic regional metastases. Within the frame of a clinical study a large number of literary data are also discussed.