Melanoma Review: Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Diagnosis and Staging

摘要

Study Aim: Cutaneous melanoma accounts for approximately 4% of all skin cancers diagnosis each year in the USA but is responsible for 75% of skin cancer deaths. Physicians need to have an up to date knowledge about the epidemiology, risk factors, and clinical features of melanoma in order to make an early diagnosis and provide appropriate management decisions to improve survival in this aggressive malignancy. We will be presenting an extensive, up to date, literature review of cutaneous melanoma including the epidemiology, risk factors, diagnosis and staging. Method: An extensive literature review was performed using the following search engines: Pubmed, Ovid, Miromedex, and Dynamed. We limited our literature search to research papers written in English using the following keywords: cutaneous melanoma, epidemiology of melanoma, risk factors for melanoma, diagnosis of melanoma, clinical classification and staging of melanoma. Results: As a result of our extensive literature review we present an up to date review on the epidemiology, pathogenesis, risk factors, diagnosis, classification and staging of cutaneous melanoma. Conclusion: Physicians need to have an up to date knowledge about the epidemiology, risk factors, and clinical features in order to make an early diagnosis and provide appropriate management decisions in order to improve the survival patients with this aggressive malignancy.