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Re: New here, pathology report questions
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Re: New here, pathology report questions

› Forums › Cutaneous Melanoma Community › New here, pathology report questions › Re: New here, pathology report questions

    • August 5, 2010 at 5:20 am
    FertilityDoc
    Participant

      I will confirm what the others are saying.  You'll probably have a wide local excision (WLE) since it looks like you had a shave biopsy.  You have 4 risk factor which will lead the surgeon to recommend a sentinel node biopsy(SNB).  Those are Breslow Depth > 1mm, Clark level of III or greater, high mitotic rate and ulceration.  This is a time to stay calm and learn about the condition.  Understand that only about 20% of patients who have a sentinel node biopsy will show melanoma in the regional lymph node.  That means you have an 80% chance of having clear nodes.  That is what I hope for you.  The morbidity (adverse side effects) of a complete lymph node dissection is significant.  Patients can sometimes suffer from lymphedema afterwards.  It is controversial even if the SNB is positive whether to have a complete lymph node excision of the regional nodes.

      Stay strong.  Stay calm.  Hopefully things will not go beyond the SNB. It is a simple outpatient surgery that has very few complications

      Kevin

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