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Although the outlook for patients with thin (≤ 1 mm) melanomas is generally good, a minority of patients will suffer adverse clinical outcomes (distant metastasis and death). The aim of this study was to identify clinico-pathological factors predictive of poorer clinical outcomes in a large number of patients with thin melanomas, by comparing patients with distant metastases with those who did not experience any tumour recurrence.

Patients with thin melanoma (≤1 mm thick) were identified in the Melanoma Institute Australia database. From this group, all patients who experienced distant metastasis, and 1000 random patients who experienced no recurrences were identified. The association of clinico-pathological features with the development of brain metastasis, distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and melanoma-specific survival (MSS) was analysed.

Of 5628 patients with thin …