A pigmented lesion clinic: analysis of the first year's 1055 patients

Melanoma screening clinics: are we detecting more melanomas or reassuring the worried well?

“…It is important to strike the correct balance between scaring the public, and encouraging people most at risk to come forward for screening. Current data from this and other studies do not show any benefit in reducing tumour thickness at presentation, 12,13 suggesting that public health campaigns may have maximized their benefit already. Perhaps we should focus more of our public health resources on prevention of excess sun exposure and sun‐bed use by trying to curb the ever‐increasing number of tanning centres and advertisements that have appeared all around us.…”

“…Breslow thickness is the accepted major predictor of mortality in melanoma patients, and it should therefore be a priority to aim for detection of thinner melanomas 10 . The benefit of MSCs in the detection of thinner melanomas was questioned in the U.K. before the launch of the initial public health campaign by the Cancer Research Campaign in 1987 2,11 , 12 . However, immediately following their launch, MSCs were shown to be effective both in identifying increased numbers of melanomas and in detecting a greater proportion of thinner tumours.…”

Factors leading to the biopsy of 1547 pigmented lesions at Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2005

“…The ratio of benign melanocytic lesions to malignant melanomas from pigmented lesions biopsied because of suspicion of melanoma was 9.2 : 1. In the medical literature, reported benign-to-malignant biopsy ratios show a surprisingly wide range [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] (Table 2), and seem to be a function of risk stratification, biopsy methods, and style. Melanoma-screening programs that do not follow high-risk patients often include primary care physician data, and so these programs may not be comparable with ours.…”

Pigmented lesion clinics - are they a waste of resources?

“…The rates of biopsy of clinically suspicious lesions has been shown to vary from 20 to 34%. 2,54,55 This variation itself affecting workload on a week-to-week basis, such that waiting lists for biopsies may develop.…”