Vascular Involvement in the Prognosis of Primary Cutaneous Melanoma

Abstract

MALIGNANT melanoma exhibits a capricious clinical behavior. Thus, while tumor thickness is the most important prognostic factor determining survival, many patients with thick melanomas are free of metastasis while a small subset of patients with thin tumors die of their disease. Therefore, information on additional factors is important to refine the prognostic information gained by knowledge of the tumor thickness.