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.