Malignant melanoma of the head and neck

Sixty-nine patients with head and neck melanoma were prospectively evaluated from 1971 to 1977. Patients presenting for initial therapy underwent wide excision of their primary tumor, and those with deeply invasive melanoma also underwent regional lymphadenectomy, whether their nodes were clinically positive or negative. The results suggest that the prognosis of this tumor is similar to that of melanoma arising at other sites. Clinical stage and primary-tumor histopathologic microstage both correlated with disease recurrence. At 1 to 75 months, patients with clinical Stage I disease had a 13% recurrence rate, while 58% of those with Stage II disease developed recurrence. Patients with superficially invasive melanoma had a 10% recurrence rate, while 17%-33% of those with deeply invasive disease developed recurrence. However, the presence of node metastases, rather than the microstage of the primary tumor, appeared to be the dominant indicator of outcome. Radical excision of the primary tumor may reduce the incidence of local disease recurrence. We believe that regional lymphadenectomy is indicated for deeply invasive melanoma.