Increase of sentinel lymph node melanoma staging in The Netherlands; still room and need for further improvement

Eric A Deckers; Marieke Wj Louwman; Schelto Kruijff; Harald J Hoekstra

doi:10.2217/mmt-2019-0018

Increase of sentinel lymph node melanoma staging in The Netherlands; still room and need for further improvement

Melanoma Manag. 2020 Mar 30;7(1):MMT38. doi: 10.2217/mmt-2019-0018.

Authors

Eric A Deckers¹, Marieke Wj Louwman², Schelto Kruijff¹, Harald J Hoekstra¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgical Oncology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
² Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation (IKNL), Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Aim: To investigate implementation of the seventh American Joint Committee on Cancer melanoma staging with sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) and associations with socioeconomic status (SES).

Patients & methods: Data from The Netherlands Cancer Registry on patient and tumor characteristics were analyzed for all stage IB-II melanoma cases diagnosed 2010-2016, along with SES data from The Netherlands Institute for Social Research.

Results: The proportion of SLNB-staged patients increased from 40% to 65% (p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that being female, elderly, or having head-and-neck disease reduced the likelihood of SLNB staging.

Conclusion: SLNB staging increased by 25% during the study period but lagged among elderly patients and those with head-and-neck melanoma. In The Netherlands, SES no longer affects SLNB staging performance.

Keywords: elderly; head and neck; melanoma; sentinel lymph node; socioeconomic status; staging.