Introduction:
Pediatric melanoma is the most common skin cancer in children. However, it is very rare with only 300-500 new reported cases annually in the United States1. While the current literature establishes treatment protocols for adult type melanoma, very few pediatric-specific studies exist, and children are often excluded from melanoma clinical trials2. There is a need to identify therapeutic strategies for pediatric melanoma as some subtypes, including atypical Spitz tumors and Spitzoid melanomas, are biologically distinct from adult-type melanomas3. Features that have proven to be valuable in predicting a positive response to targeted therapies and/or immunotherapies in adults with melanoma include ulceration, Breslow thickness, cytogenetic abnormalities, and staging4. However, more research is needed to further elucidate how these clinical and histopathologic features influence pediatric melanoma outcomes.
We report our experience with children under 21 years of age diagnosed with and subsequently treated for melanoma.